We all make decisions about what is true and false based on our presuppositions, but in some jurisdictions the most widely held standards of evidence, held by the man on the street, are insufficiently rigorous and insufficiently well informed. For example, if there’s a common belief that government officials act corruptly in their own self interest, then a news story that reports a particular instance of this will tend to be believed no matter whether the evidence is flimsy. This is why most Arabic countries have strong prohibitions against such stories. Their policy, which I think is sensible, is that if you have evidence of corruption, you should bring it to the anti-corruption prosecutor, not the mass media. That is censorship, you know, but it’s with an intent to promote responsible knowledge.

As a different kind of example, Syria has strong censorship against speech that promotes sectarian or religious acrimony. I personally am very strongly opposed to any similar kind of censorship in the educated society of today’s Western Europe. My reason is based on trusting people to evaluate the evidence intelligently. But I don’t confidently suppose that my reason is applicable to societies that were largely illiterate until a generation or two ago.