IMG source - The Duck, simply the top of the results of a search for 'censorship'
@theycallmedan from time to time undertakes to promote creation of content he considers desirable, and he now is promoting discussions of free speech, which I strongly agree is more necessary today than it has ever been before. [note: while do not have the ability to post to Twitter, which is a requirement of @theycallmedan's promotion, I desire to participate in promoting free speech, even if I cannot receive the encomium @theycallmedan has offered for participation.]
Many users of Hive specifically use the platform because of it's resistance to censorship, and I have recently posted regarding the deficits of DPoS in ability to resist censorship.
Steem today well illustrates those deficits, and Hive is exactly a copy of Steem. Almost the only difference between Hive and Steem is that Stinc does not possess the founder's stake on Hive, and instead that stake has been stuffed into the HPS. This resolves the specific individual takeover Steem succumbed to, but it clearly leaves the mechanism by which that takeover was effected completely intact, which guarantees that another attacker will undertake another attack sooner or later.
The fact is that an oligarchy of stakehodlers presently governs Hive, as @ned allowed to govern Steem by his abstention from exercising that power his personal stake enabled him to do, that has been exercised by Sun Yuchen since his acquisition of that stake. The form of governance on Steem did not change. The abstention @ned practiced ended when his possession of the necessary stake ended.
Accordingly, the degree of censorship resistance of Hive is dependent presently on that oligarchy. It is also absolutely guaranteed that censorship resistance will decrease incrementally, at least, going forward as it has steadily since the inception of Steem.
Eventually, the complete power to censor will be overtly imposed on Hive by hodlers of nominal stake, whether the present stakehodlers governing Hive change their policies, or that stake changes hands.
I have called for ideas regarding how to better secure Hive, even before Hive existed, in my posts and comments regarding these facts. I have tagged every consensus witness, directly confronted several, and have received absolutely zero responses that could potentially better secure Hive from any of them.
I will submit an HPS proposal shortly to allow stakehodlers to undertake to secure Hive from censorship, but that proposal will be focused on the mechanism, and censorship itself should be discussed elsewhere. I am grateful to @theycallmedan for this initiative regarding censorship, and note that it is existentially critical to Hive to better secure governance that it now does.
Again, Hive is exactly the same as Steem in terms of censorship resistance, and Steem perfectly demonstrates what will inevitably happen to Hive if Hive does not better secure governance than Steem did.
Speech is life. It is universally accepted that speech isn't just the oral communications we undertake, but myriad other means we use to express ourselves, such as written words, dance, and art.
Some undertake to suppose that freedom of speech is product of philosophy, that it's variable application is appropriate, or even necessary, and that allowing people to say what they will harms society. That is factually correct, but neglects the fact that speech comprises a broad range of behaviour enabling comparison of human speech to those behaviours of other species that similarly express intent.
The drumming of Prairie Chickens on the lek, the bellows of rutting Elk, or Gorillas beating their chests are all speech. People are certainly no less compelled to communicate than other species. Any proscription of their communications seeks to decrease their ability to live, and, absent some proof to the contrary, is undertaken to increase the ability of the censors to live.
Censorship is a form of slavery.
That being said, censorship is undertaken by many species besides people, and naturally is an aspect of human society. Freedom of speech isn't absolute, and some censorship must be undertaken to prevent speakers from succeeding contrary to the interests of others. This is a natural competition between individual members of a species.
However, humanity is different from other species in how it socializes. Government undertakes to focus production and decrease competition in order to aggrandize the polity (whether across all membership, or simply those in power. The claim of overlords is always that government policy is best for all).
Censorship by government, by the time of the American Revolution, revealed that horrible crimes profiting corrupt government agents and cryptic overlords (powers behind the throne) often degraded human society excessively. One innovation undertaken by the Articles of Confederation (also continued by the Constitution of the United States of America) was to limit authority the State could undertake specifically regarding speech to a previously inconceivable degree.
The nature of humanity necessitating government has impelled those manifesting governance to continually seek to extend the power of government these few centuries since the creation of the USA, and today we see substantial censorship extending far beyond that necessary to prevent intolerable violent revolution. It is probably impossible to humanity to institute governance that does not feature increasing aggrandizement of despots, as Jefferson lamented when he supposed that occasional revolutions would be necessary to maintain the free society he thought the USA effected.
Absolute order is death. Conversely, complete chaos is also. Freedom of speech, simply defined as behaviour of individuals of the human species, necessarily must be somewhere in between the extremes, and where in between is best remains ineffable today. This gives overlords latitude to oppress beyond what is optimal to society, and dissenters similarly undertake to disrupt governance beyond what is meet.
Today we see a global tyranny being imposed exactly by propaganda: existential pandemic threat has been used to impose insuperable censorship. Given the broader definition of speech I apply in this discussion to include such behaviour native to our species as undertaking socialization, quarantines, mandatory vaccinations, and martial law in general, the institution of this global governance is clearly a dramatic move towards absolute order, and arguably will just as dramatically cause many deaths.
When has imposition of tyranny not?
The only way we who are to die under the global tyranny being imposed can save our lives is to prevent that censorship that will kill us. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.
The dead are forever silent.