It isn’t, which is why, if enough of the media makes those choices in concert, it adds up to a statelike role. Like, the MPAA or the Comics Code Authority aren’t government agencies, but they are absolutely censors.
Editorial discretion is censorship. IMO that’s good, if we’re talking about bold artistic choices, and there are lots of independent editorial voices available; but if we’re talking about big companies acting in the interests of their corporate image (which are the same for all their competitors), then that’s another story.
For most of my life I wasn’t allowed to see anyone like me on screen, not because it was illegal, but because every media company made the same business decision in parallel. And that’s the kind of process we’re talking about here, too. So I’m not going to pretend the system itself is cool, just because it happens to be targeting deserving racists instead of cool sexy gays this week.
It’s possible for it to be right for HBO to not host movies like this, and also an asshole move for them to cash in that chip at this particular moment. Especially because, like I say, it’s an unforced gift to the world of right-wing victimhood fanfic.
