When the establishment media and big tech puts forth extreme concerted effort in using whatever underhanded techniques it can to attempt to slander and undermine you and your ideas, calling you every name in the book, associating you with "undesirable" groups of people, putting "debunked" labels next to the things you say, de-platforms, cancels, the whole nine yards... and its followers lap up that behavior, and engage in it themselves on discussion websites and social media, and even in real life, but you can still technically talk about it on the far corners of the web or if you're in a group of people you're sure think like you think, sorry but that is absolutely 100% still a form of censorship.
The lab leak theory was never treated by the establishment as "a minority opinion with which most experts disagree", it was ridiculed and attacked, thereby effectively changing much of the public psyche against it. The damage was done. The government doesn't have to force a website to delete a post mentioning the lab leak theory in order for something to be considered censorship. Otherwise you're playing the semantics game - and losing at it.
When the establishment media and big tech puts forth extreme concerted effort in using whatever underhanded techniques it can to attempt to slander and undermine you and your ideas, calling you every name in the book, associating you with "undesirable" groups of people, putting "debunked" labels next to the things you say, de-platforms, cancels, the whole nine yards... and its followers lap up that behavior, and engage in it themselves on discussion websites and social media, and even in real life, but you can still technically talk about it on the far corners of the web or if you're in a group of people you're sure think like you think, sorry but that is absolutely 100% still a form of censorship.
The lab leak theory was never treated by the establishment as "a minority opinion with which most experts disagree", it was ridiculed and attacked, thereby effectively changing much of the public psyche against it. The damage was done. The government doesn't have to force a website to delete a post mentioning the lab leak theory in order for something to be considered censorship. Otherwise you're playing the semantics game - and losing at it.