Recently it was discovered that Cartoon Network was going to be censoring a scene from a show called Steven Universe that depicted a dance between two female characters. The censorship itself is rather innocuous, removing a tiny fraction of the total scene. Regardless, it seems just a little dumb. And Cartoon Network’s statement that, removing the 1-2 seconds from the longer similar scene would make parents and children more “comfortable”, seems rather regressive.

Detailed here.

What interested me more was the reaction from the kinds of internet groups who are typically supportive of decisions to “localise”/self-censor content. As a user in /r/GamerGhazi notes:

/u/casersatz – To be logically consistent with my attitude toward Japanese games being altered for the US, I’ll probably need to say that this was a company doing what they think is right with their own property.

But why did they think it was right? That’s what I want to know. When Japanese games are altered for the US, or not sold there at all, Gamergaters have an easy conspiratorial scapegoat for the company’s actions: “SJWs”. I wish my worldview were so simple.

Lets make something clear; self-censorship is not uniformly negative. I typically swear a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever sworn in the presence of my Gran. We can choose to modify our behaviour and speech to reflect a certain setting and there should certainly be analogous scenarios in media. I’m also not in support of holding companies responsible for actively defending our right to Free-Speech (providing they’re not attacking it of course). Sometimes companies may find that 2 demographic groups would buy their game sans-controversial-content but only 1 group would purchase if said content were included, or, sometimes groups will kick up a fuss and cause bad publicity costing money. Either way, I would never demand someone subjugate their desire or need to get paid so that my arguments about free-speech could be a little stronger. Companies or groups may wish to push a pro-Free-Speech agenda but that should be up to them.

HOWEVER… The problem we face when we allow censorship like that of the Steven Universe is that we establish a norm that we should never be exposed to things that we don’t like. This is one of the reasons certain left-wing people have been branded the regressive-left. Whether we have an ideological problem with censorship or not, we hit the practical problem that it’s possible to censor things we do like as well as those we don’t. The (admittedly minor) censorship of the Steven Universe is precisely the kind of scenario people like myself, who value those tasty “freeze-peaches” so much, worry about. As is so often said, Free-speech is about protecting bad ideas and good ones because censorship can be applied both too.

This is not to say that we can’t “self-censor”, at least in the personal sense (censoring someone else is a little different; I’m not talking about that). As stated, I’ll continue not swearing in the presence of my Gran. But in the context of the right to Free-Speech, I believe that this right comes with obligations. One such obligation is that, when censorship happens (self imposed or otherwise) and it is felt to be inappropriate; we have a duty to call this out. Thankfully, this is already happening with regards to Cartoon Networks decision.

Now, lets take a moment to deal with the second portion of the quote at the top, caveat: I’m not involved with GamerGate outside of some occasional shared/related topics of interest such as this: “When Japanese games are altered for the US, or not sold there at all, Gamergaters have an easy conspiratorial scapegoat for the company’s actions: “SJWs”. I wish my worldview were so simple.”

The above user was consistent at least but not everyone felt the same:

/u/NotSquareGarden – This isn’t “actual censorship”. This is an editorial decision you disagree with (and rightly so, of course). No government authority in the UK forced, threatened or pressured them into making this decision. The ratings system in the UK allows for kissing and cuddling in children’s programs, so it wasn’t that either.

Let’s call it what it actually is: A homophobic and extremely cowardly decision made by a corporation.

Where to even begin? So first off, it is censorship, albeit self-censorship. Second, at this stage I shouldn’t need to explain why the term “censorship” doesn’t necessitate Governmental force. The problem here, as aptly noted, is that a group of people made a decision that you disagree with. They decided that being gay makes kids and parents uncomfortable and you don’t like that. The decision to self-censor here represents a comment on the things you enjoy or support: a suggestion that this thing you like is or might be negative. This is what GamerGate gets pissed about, at least by my reading.

This is why people get annoyed when it comes to removing butt slaps from games:

Yoshinori Ono – We decided to remove that because we want the biggest possible number of people to play, and we don’t want to have something in the game that might make someone uncomfortable.

i.e. ‘The idea that people may be finding the women characters attractive makes some portion of potential customer-base uncomfortable’. This is represents an assessment of this kind of attraction as negative. Many GGers, men and women, think that this is dumb and they say as much.

Note the similarity between what Yoshinori Ono says and what I said above regarding reaching a broader audience, but also the similarity of the language used to justify the self-censorship of Steven Universe. The same process is happening is each example.

Again, it’s not so much that the censorship happens; after-all, if the company wants to make the most money then I think that’s their right. But if content starts getting removed because people are made uncomfortable by the notion that characters in-game might be sexually appealing to any portion of the audience then I think we have an obligation to say that this is a silly thing to be made “uncomfortable” by. The same goes for the same-sex dancing in Steven Universe.