Depending on the circumstance, I completely agree. There are certainly many cases where censoring yourself is giving away your power and freedom of expression.

However, it’s not disingenuous to say that if I want to censor myself, for any reason, on the internet I will likely be shamed by folks who want to assert their values over mine. And as such, acquiescing means I am once again giving away my power to the people who want to dictate what I do with my life.

Perhaps I want to do it because I find it funny. Or perhaps I want to do it because I’m trying to emulate a classic comic book speech style, which often had to use censorship because they were being controlled, but now has become a recognizable convention. Or perhaps, as I already mentioned, I simply want to do it to assert my right to speak how I choose,despite the “higher authority” of the crowd.

For whatever reason, giving up my freedom of expression, as you already mentioned, f*%king sucks actually.

For example, take this post. OP didn’t care if it was censored or not, they just wanted to share something funny and didn’t want to work to do it. Yet most of the comments are about the rage felt by folks who wanted OP to do more work so they didn’t have to see a black bar.