>Censorship has become an issue within some subreddits, too. It's not about getting rid of blatant spammers any more. Far too often we've seen contributing, albeit unorthodox, members of these communities banned for expressing views that may be controversial, but still worth expressing.

Reddit's problem has never been spam. In fact, you alluded to it earlier in your post: it's quality.

"Censorship", aka moderation, is necessary to promote quality content. Wikipedia, /., and SO are all heavily moderated. So, too, is HN. Without moderation (censorship, in your words), content regresses to the LCD. This is bad, and worth preventing. Moderation achieves that.