It is a shame that there is such censorship in these social media platforms but in a way it almost becomes a natural expectancy to any large media platform. In my opinion Steemit is only immune to censorship because it isn't large enough for censorship to be a concern for it. However, if steemit is successful over the long term and if it gets a lot bigger then what it is currently, then it will also naturally have to begin to censor its content as well. I'll explain my reasoning.

The platforms themselves are a corporate brand and the opinions of the members who use the platform naturally become associated with that corporate brand - both consciously and subconsciously. Individual users who put forth unfavorable opinions into the public domain actually end up reflecting poorly on the platform itself. This in turn can have a negative effect on its revenue stream. If advertisers stop buying add space because they fear that their product and their brand will also become associated with offensive fringe thinking then they will stop buying add space. As an example, if you had a company and you bought add space on a social media platform, the last thing that you would want is for your advertisement to run in the middle of say a white supremacy group ranting about hate. That would be seriously bad news for your brand. You wouldn't want any conscious or subconscious association with offensive material. As a business it is better to stay neutral. So, advertisers not buying up add space naturally becomes a serious threat to the social media platform itself, so they in turn have to begin to censor their content and inhibit content creators that reflect poorly on the platform. With this in mind, I personally do not think that steemit is immune to censorship albiet temporarily. Steemit simply isn't big enough to have to worry about censorship because it does not have strong enough advertisers to influence their operations. If steemit gets bigger and starts taking on big advertisers as clients then it will also begin to censor its content out of fear of losing those large revenue streams. Its a shame that it happens but in my mind its based on economics. It kind of begs the question "do we want steemit to get really big and popular and have to start censoring their content or do we want it to remain small so that content can remain uncensored?"