Wikipedia defines censorship as "the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by the censor." Merriam-Webster defines censor as "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable."
So here's the question. Is a request not to respond negatively to a post on Facebook censorship?
Senator Edward Kennedy died last night. A friend of mine, who is a friend on Facebook, posted a status update saying "RIP" and a note of respect for Senator Kennedy, and followed up with a comment requesting that her conservative friends respect her feelings and not post anything negative in response to her post. Unfortunately, two of her "friends" were not respectful of this request and proceeded to bash Kennedy. Vehemently. A few of her friends, myself included, suggested that - out of respect for their friend - perhaps they should refrain from these kinds of statements. That if those were their opinions, they could post them on their own statuses or their own pages, and leave her post alone. Unfortunately, they argued that Facebook was a public forum, and they were entitled to say whatever they wanted. That her request was censorship.
I think that censorship isn't the issue here. I think this is a case of respect. Whether or not you are a fan of Senator Kennedy, the woman asked her friends to respect her feelings. And they didn't. And that's wrong.
And in the end, both of them ended up apologizing to her. For not respecting her request. So in fact, respect was the issue - not censorship.
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