Digital authoritarianism and social censorship in the context of the pandemic COVID-19

Abstract

Censorship, which each of us experiences today, arose in the historical context in which the type of market economy developed characteristic of the Western world since the Renaissance. Thus, censorship may have certain normative aspects and may be accompanied by prohibitions. Such a distinction is applicable to all phenomena present in a society. An example can undoubtedly be the language norms imposed during the pandemic situation by the authorities and not only, which we all know. Therefore, from a social and cultural point of view, information censorship is primarily interested in what is at the content level of the reported facts, as being an image of the existing society and culture. The aim of the paper is to distinguish the specificity of social censorship in different countries, through the lens of censorship culture, against the background of digital authoritarianism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.