> Some institutions have actually institutionalised censorship. For example, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), a major publisher, has issued guidelines for editors to „consider whether or not any content … might have the potential to cause offence“.

Is Krylov seriously asking us to consider this censorship? This is called politeness.

The citation for the list of innocuous terms to "censor" is another, very similar piece by Krylov, which cites this [0] memo from the University of Michigan's IT department. It lists no consequences for failing to use the alternate terms. Quote:

> Not all words on this list may be offensive to everyone. Regardless, if a colleague considers a word or phrase offensive, their lived experience should be acknowledged, and an alternative word or phrase should be used.

This is not "All who refuse to adopt our Newspeak must be re-educated", this is "If someone says a term is offensive, just be polite and go with it, and here are some alternative terms to help with that." It doesn't even tell you to stop using it in general, just when someone objects! Calling this "censorship" is ridiculous.

Let's look at the other two examples as well.

First, consider what happened to Tomáš Hudlický after he wrote the article.

> The journal removed the paper from its website. ... A planned special issue of Synthesis in his honour was cancelled, invitations to speak at conferences and to review papers ceased, citations to his papers were deleted, and collaborators were encouraged to dissociate themselves from him.

He wasn't fired, or demoted, or disciplined. Mainly, people just stopped wanting to associate with him. Was this proportionate? Let's now consider what the wider chemistry community thought about the article:

> Sixteen editorial board members resigned in protest of the publication. The journal ... issued an abject apology, suspended two editors, and began an internal investigation. Condemnation ensued in blogs, journals, and statements issued by chemical societies.

What happened to Hudlický seems like the straightforward consequence of holding a deeply controversial view. Lots of people won't like you for it. They don't owe you the things they were planning to give you before you wrote an article everyone hates. Saying all of them simultaneously "capitulated to the mob" is an entirely baseless framing (that's all too common in this type of writing).

As for Dorian Abbot, paraphrasing the article, "A group of activists initiated a social media campaign to uninvite him. MIT cancelled the event."

Again, unpopular people are not owed speaking appearances. Disinvitation is not punishment. The point of these talks is the prestige of having a respected expert make an appearance and share their views. If the audience doesn't like you, there's no reason for the university to invite you to speak. If this is all that happened to Abbot, I'm struggling to see why I ought to care about this.

In summary, an organization asked people to consider other peoples' feelings before publishing things, and some unpopular people were not allowed to give prestigious lectures. Going back to the top of the article and reading Krylov compare this to autocratic regimes and murder highlights just how dishonest and hyperbolic the framing is on all of these "cancel culture" articles. They're all like this.

[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/11a8cUt1SCfIxQRBZk_TnRYM5ltE...

[1] Further reading: https://michaelhobbes.substack.com/p/moral-panic-journalism