Curate: To select (the best or most appropriate) especially for presentation, distribution, or publication.
Censorship: The institution, system, or practice of censoring.
Censor (verb): To examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.
Censor (noun): A person who examines materials for objectionable matter.
The difference between curated and censored is transparency and good intent. An equation would look like this:
Curated – Transparency – Good Intent = Censored
Life itself is curation, the handpicking of relationships, careers, information, housing, hobbies, and surroundings.
In the curation of life, there are certain aids that contribute to the selection process. These are brands we trust for helping us curate the experience of life. Whole Foods bans 230+ ingredients from the food they sell, thus curating a healthier eating experience. Disney Channel curates advertising with child appropriate messages that tie the product being pitched to their programing. Streaming TV now has more than 200 services to choose from, each with its own type of curation from news to sports to movies to cartoons. These are examples of curation. They are also examples of authorized censorship. That is, these brands or products are often knowingly selected by the purchaser who trusts the censor’s intention and judgment. Curation is authorized censorship.
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Unauthorized censorship, the traditional form of censorship as it is commonly known, should be a cause of grave concern. This is where information is curated for you in an intentionally non-transparent way. Common forms of unauthorized censorship often include news, search engines, social media, medical diagnosis, educational systems, political speeches, food and healthcare packaging, television commercials, and sometimes even everyday conversations where parties extract out certain information upon delivery. The unauthorized curation of information, that is censorship, has staggering implications for the quality of one’s life. What one sees and hears (the biased delivery of censored information or products) impacts beliefs, while very often the real value of the communication is in that which is unseen, unheard, and often undelivered.
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Additionally, there is a third category of censorship which lays in between authorized curation and unauthorized censorship and that is the authorization of unauthorized curation, the most deceitful and dangerous, of all three categories. “Will You Accept These Cookies.” It sounds so pleasant. What memories are invoked when you think of Cookies? Home, family, grandmother baking, sharing, warmth, love, and open arms. The cookies we are speaking of are not the emotionally gratifying ones that are encased in our emotional memories from childhood to teenage years to adulthood of love, celebration, holiday treats, parties, and favorite moments together, not to mention Girl Scout Cookies. The cookies we are speaking of are the kind that soundlessly launch into your computer, gathering information about you, your habits, your relationships, and your finances, then synthesizing and analyzing this information for use in curation. Without thought, most press “Yes. I accept the cookies.” It is done unaware and with disregard all in the name of viewing a product or information. Suddenly? Surprisingly? Appearing on the web searches, the streaming TV, or Alexa, there is information that is a bit unsettling, because it suggests they are being always watched and listened to. And they are. They accepted the cookies.
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As an interesting side note, in George Orwell’s popular dystopian book, 1984, Big Brother did curate all things for the people of Oceania, including memories of popular foods.
There is a widely popular saying that we are each the average of the people we spend time with and the books we read. What this really means, is that we are each the average of our authorized and unauthorized curators.
- Stacey Alcorn