(William Ammerman) Big Tech publishers, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google, use seven major censorship tactics to control the flow of information through their products. Under the beneficent guise of “content moderation” most censorship by Big Tech publishers was traditionally directed at vices such as obscenity, violence, drugs, and gambling, often in direct response to advertisers who don’t want their ads to appear adjacent to such content. But increasingly, these publishers are applying censorship tactics to more slippery categories such as disinformation, bullying, and hate speech, where definitions are elusive and judgments are subjective and prone to bias. As the public increasingly relies on these publishers for news and information, it is vital to understand these censorship tactics and the potential risks they pose to free speech. Here are the 7 D’s of Big Tech censorship: