The supporters of the writer who were prevented from reading the anti-fascist text on live TV are shouting at censorship, 479 words which in the wake of the controversy were recited to almost unified networks and published by newspapers of all kinds. He says the rapper who asked for a minute of silence for Gaza in the square in Milan and was not invited to Naples was cancelled. He shouts that nothing more can be said about the politician who gets voted for thanks to the racist and homophobic outbursts that he freely repeats everywhere. The singer-songwriter removed from the talent show denounces censorship.
We are a nation that has more censored than uncensored. Judging by certain appeals, we live in a time of freedom in serious and immediate danger. But if everything is censorship, nothing is censorship. Small and large repressive episodes are used as political levers and multipliers of popularity of those who suffer them. But then the undersecretary of Culture Gianmarco Mazzi arrives and actually asks the operators in the recording sector to regulate the lyrics of rappers, of course without “adopting a censorial attitude”. The word is taboo, better to go around it.
In this context of great confusion and great freedom of expression, a half book and half magazine has been published which addresses the topic with 18 interviews with singers and others conducted by Paola Zukar, editor of Aelle and today manager among others of Marracash, Fabri Fibra, Madame (he interviews them in the book, perhaps a little discaimer could have been included) and Claudio Cabona, journalist of the 19th century and of Rockol. Title: Explicit lyrics, citation of the “Parent Advisory Explicit Content” sticker placed in the 1980s on records with strong content. In the introduction Zukar compares that sticker to the imprimatur that in 1500 the ecclesiastical authority granted to the printing of a work. To me it seems no more or less like the vintage version of today's “Trigger Warning”. The ultrasensitives of this era look like Tipper Gore, but have better hairstyles. In the background there is the debate that started a few months ago on rap lyrics, on what is legitimate to say, how far one can go, what forces act to moderate the contents and therefore freedom of expression.
Explicit lyrics it is not an attempt to deal with the topic in a systematic way, but a round of opinions in which the theme of new styles of censorship, as the subtitle states, is often tangential or even marginal, rarely central. They are often very interesting conversations around the broader themes of freedom, the true, the false, and the role of the artist. Rappers, writers, cartoonists, actors and journalists interviewed sweep away the cliché according to which in Italy the right to express one's thoughts is in danger. They agree on the fact that at least in the world of art and music this is not the place, nor the time of traditional censorship, which requires there to be an authority that controls and limits freedom of expression from above. Zerocalcare says it well, which in fact struggles to use the word censorship: «That many people do not take sides for fear of losing consensus, or of seeing some spaces closed down, is certainly true, but it seems to me that it says more about ethics and the sense of responsibility of the Italian intellectual class than on the censorial “power”. Milena Gabanelli goes straight: she has never suffered censorship “neither in Rai nor at Corriere, where she has worked for six years”.
Having canceled the reflex that makes people cry out for censorship every time someone is asked to change something, what remains is the attempt to tell, as Zukar writes, «the path that led us from a vertical control, from above, which prevented us from saying certain things, to the current horizontal control which ensures that any attempt to say something new, uncomfortable, or at least new, is nipped in the bud no longer by those above you, but by those next to you. From your “follower”, from those who comment on your tweets, your videos, your photos, your songs, your attempts at expression. A more refined and much more subtle form of post-censorship.”
The formula “dictatorship of political correctness” looms evil and it could only be Despicable Guè who brought it up. It is a very slippery expression since it is used like a cudgel by those who look at the issue from the right and claim the possibility of offending anyone, without any consequences, and indeed of doing so with great enjoyment. For the rapper it is a «form of censorship from below, more than anything else self-censorship which can be summed up with the overused saying “you can't say anything anymore”. I don't want to seem like a barbarian, because in any case I understand that you can't offend everyone in the world, especially minorities, but it's hard to no longer be able to say shit, especially for a musical genre that was born like this, explicit.”
The fear of incurring reactions from social media users, when they mass, pushes us not to express certain opinions, unless they help to position ourselves in what at that moment, in that context, is the good side. Or in some cases it leads to expressing them and then regretting them and deleting them for fear of being overwhelmed by a storm of negative comments to which it will be impossible to respond reasonably.
The shitstorm, says Marracash, «is the greatest weapon of thought annihilation because it completely makes you stop wanting to try to say something that goes beyond nothing». The bad thing, he says, is that shitstorm is not considered toxic. «If I write an annoying, biting rhyme about BTS, I remain publicly condemnable, but if 500 million girls write to me “son of a bitch, you have to die” then there is no problem». You end up feeling free to deal with any topic in a rap piece, which actually happens, and you are extremely cautious when writing on social media where «I think about it five times and almost never write, because it's too easy to be misunderstood, there is too little space to say it, the margin is too narrow to explain it well.”
For Marracash, the only thing worse is the cancellation by popular acclaim on social media. «It is an even more extreme choice because if you censor a content, however hateful, that content remains somewhere, whereas today you delete that very person and with him/her any possibility that he/she will say something». And instead the past should not be erased, “it must also remain there as proof and testimony of the mistakes made and therefore it seems to me more useful if used as something to learn from”. And so today, continues Marra, censorship is creeping. «It is not explicit, it is not exhibited as a threat, on the contrary, we all live in a great illusion of freedom of expression, of being able to say what we want to say, of being able to be what we want to be, but then in reality the judgment and censorship they are even stronger than before, in my opinion. We live with the “Big Brother syndrome”, where your friends and your child report you.”
Rap is obviously at the center of this discussion, also attacked by a certain moralism that is more left-wing than right-wing. Unlike Italian pop, which has partially surrendered to the idea that the singer must pursue social objectives for example in terms of “new” rights, in rap the idea survives that the artist can be provocative, that he can make people uncomfortable, that is beautifully indifferent to civil battles. Rap is obviously also attacked by the right-wing as the bearer of socially reprehensible and dangerous models of behavior (see Mazzi's initiative or certain other statements from the Middle Ages). According to Don Claudio Burgio, founder of the Kayros community, the origin of the scandals created by many rap lyrics in Italy is the rampant “quietism” deriving from the Catholic culture with which we are imbued. The censor within us wants artists to make us see reality “within acceptable forms, not under a lens of anxiety.” The strength of rap would instead be «that of restoring reality for what it is, even in its harshest and most violent forms. Those songs help us “see”».
In reality, a form of control of content from above persists: it is that exercised by the platforms, often according to the unquestionable judgment of mysterious algorithms equipped with faulty moral judgments. It is the provatization of control over content. The Facebook profile of Rolling Stone Italyfor example, has been an object for six months and will be an object for another six months shadow ban for publishing the photo from the film An armchair for two by Dan Aykroyd dressed as Santa Claus holding a gun to his head. It is broadcast every 24 December on Italia 1, but for Facebook it is incitement to suicide. “You can be banned for a word, you can be misunderstood,” says the satirical monologist Filippo Giardina. «Social media corrupts any profession. Some kids ask me: “How do I become a successful comedian?”. Perhaps today, if you are a slightly overweight woman and talk about feminism on social media, you become one. Just accumulate followers using certain themes and you can get anywhere.” For Riko De Ville, co-creator of Thamsanqa, the mechanics are bizarre. «I work a lot with the world of Twitch: you can swear, but until recently you couldn't be bare-chested. If the platform found a male nipple, it would close your channel, block you completely, causing economic damage.”
The other new style of self-censorship is not new. It's about the power exercised by brands who, with their investments, determine the fortunes of singers who earn less and less from recorded music and concerts, due to the way the system is made or due to an inability to satisfy the dominant taste. In Explicit lyrics the topic is only mentioned and it's a shame. There are Massimo Pericolo who tells us that the video of Beretta it scared an investor, who therefore backed out and Fabri Fibra who mentions the brands in passing saying that «the content creator censors himself because he knows that otherwise he will not be able to access certain passages on the radio, stages, brands or specific cachets».
Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe not, but the three forms of self-censorship and content moderation are closely linked. In a context where you probably earn more from a performance at a company party than from a year of streaming, the bargaining power of artists with brands is given by their fame, which is measured by the number of followers. If you don't have broad enough shoulders, you can't alienate them with certain exits and positions, nor can you afford to play with the marked sensitivity (ahem) of an algorithm intoxicated with virtuosity. And it's obviously not worth taking positions that displease the brands that might invest in you. It's natural: would you advertise your company that produces renewable energy by relying on those who accuse you of greenwahsing?
Do you want to know who's in charge? Follow the Danes. This is what is not said in the book. Milena Gabanelli mentions it when she states that the pressure from advertisers is felt on news sites. Since people today want “to have free news online”, before attacking a big brand “that pays a lot of money you have to think carefully”. Now reread the sentence replacing “the news” with “the music”.