No — it’s not quite the same. But if you systematically demonetise any content you don’t like, in the long term it does amount to a form of censorship.

It’s as if a government said ‘we’ll tax you 1000% if you criticise us on social media’. You’d still get some bozos online saying ‘it’s not censorship; people are free to speak’ because you’re not directly prevented from speaking. But you can imagine the effect it would have.

Yeah, but there is always going to be different incentives for different content. Some content will always pay more. It is up to the author which kind of content they want to create.

E.g. clickbait content might bring you more, but it doesn't mean the other type of content is censored.

Clickbait content brings more via an organic process (because people actually want to click on it). The type of de facto censorship I’m talking about is anything but organic — it’s an unnatural distortion imposed on creators and consumers who don’t want it.