We can help with that! NCAC is concerned with censorship in all its forms, even those instances where private enterprises are within their legal rights to marginalize or ban content based on a point of view.

Users engage with the Internet as a democratizing public square but, in reality, most of the online channels we rely on are controlled by private enterprises who must reconcile their own usually benign intentions with user demands, fiduciary interests, governmental enforcement agencies and, on top of all of that, partner companies who are dealing with a similar tangle of responsibilities.

So in the case of Saga #12, it’s tough to know at this point whether the incident was purely a matter of miscommunication, but NCAC’s “iCensor” series (Part 1, Part 2) in Censorship News offers a background on how online payment processors, social networks and streaming media services have at times put a chill on free expression.

The most important thing about yesterday is that fans and creators made their support for diverse and mature themes in digitally distributed comics resoundingly clear on Twitter and elsewhere. No one knows how the private/public sphere of the Internet will shake out, but users standing up to support free speech will be necessary to keeping our digital future open.