eli5 what is the difference between censorship and redaction? when the government releases files for the public, they redact quite a bit of information. Isn’t that censorship?
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The difference is typically intent, but also the target.
Censorship is being imposed on another. You censor somebody or something – generally to prevent offense.
Redactions are self imposed. You redact a news article you published that turns out to be false or misleading. In the context of government, you redact identifiers like names, places, etc that can compromise security. Since damn near anything can compromise, say, a foreign agent, even ways of speech, a lot tends to get redacted.
Make no mistake, an intelligence agency can narrow down suspects by speech patterns and word choice when combined with other variables like context, location, or access to information. So when it comes to secrecy, a lot of things get redacted out of necessity, not necessarily malicious intent. But it’s also a good way to hide malicious intent. Which is why there’s so much vetting in inter-agency and inter-department investigation and why the FBI says very little during and street investigation. This is also why there are so many closed door hearings when it comes to redacted information.
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