Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For the past couple of years we have endured a lengthy, one-sided, and largely fruitless debate over “censorship” on our US social networks. The issue reached a low point in May, when the Trump White House put out a call for all Americans to report perceived incidents of censorship on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Nothing came of the exercise but a campaign rally disguised as “a social media summit,” along with a volley of red-meat headlines designed to comfort the comfortable. As right-wing meme lords fulminated in the White House about censorship, the Trump administration shut off comments on the live video stream and required participants to submit all questions in advance so they could be moderated.

Of course, American…

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