Censorship is happening as we speak

Curate means: to select things such as documents, music, products, or internet content to be included as part of a list or collection, or on a website (Cambridge Dictionary)

The most difficult thing to see is something that is not there, obviously, like in a crime scene, when vital clues are missing.

Freedom of speech and representation are being systematically curated as we speak and you might not be aware of it because what is missing is not seen.

As an author I use several website services which provide free images or even Ai generated images, and those sites are progressively becoming moderated to omit pictures which someone, or some algorithm considers offensive. When you start omitting images of historical figures and events, for instance, images of Adolf Hitler, NAZI flags, war and human rights violations, or symbols of such oppressors, and other important historical images, you are in fact tampering with history, making it so that present and future generations will not be able to access this material and that changes the very narrative of our story as human beings.

Whether this is being done to align to the Woke movement, or some fundamentalist religious values or other pressures by unseen forces, so as not expose people to the “horrors” of the past, it is pure redaction and is censorial of the truth, the real story, the real narrative. Just like some schools in the U.S. who have recently banned such books as To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic novel which exposes the brutality of racism towards people of color.

I am already experiencing the fruits of this censorship in my searches for valuable imagery, so imagine in the next few years when someone is trying to find images to describe, or even understand events which unfolded sometime in the past, what version are they going to get? Certainly NOT the true one.

We need to fight this censorial movement - because it will eventually reach our shores as writers - where those with the power to do so will start censoring what is “acceptable” for us to write or publish on their platforms. It is coming - so it is up to us to stop it.

Réal Laplaine

Author

www.reallaplaine.com