There has been content removed from the blockchain, or at least that all the front ends have agreed not to make available. It may still be there, and people that can search the blockchain themselves, that can code a blockchain explorer, can still find it, but I cannot. Almost none of Hive's users can. That is pretty extreme censorship.
Any suppression of speech is censorship, even rolling your eyes at someone is (very mild) censorship. Shooting them in the head is censorship too. Tampering with their car, like Michael Collins Piper's, or seizing the bank accounts of their supporters, are all forms of censorship. DV's are censorship too. If you convince someone not to speak, you have censored whatever they would have said.
A lot never gets to the blockchain because of censorship, and I know of information that I can't get from the blockchain that I have seen posted on Hive. The blockchain is not censorship proof.
I think a bigger problem is SELF-censorship - fear that saying certain things will be disallowed, give a bad reputation, or get down-voted.
I don't think you're wrong, but the fact is that however you define censorship, whatever the bar is you set, it exists here. I have observed even literal and credible death threats expressed on the platform in the past. I certainly self-censor in the attempt to reason with folks. Not exerting some degree of tact results in out of control ranting and makes actual useful discussion impossible. Some of my favorite posters are known for doing exactly this, even at me, from time to time.
That ~1M accounts that have been flagged off the platform is a glaringly obvious example that folks remaining here after have been more tactful, or spineless, and I probably exemplify this well, and have since I got here. I have had many conversations with whales in which I attempted to reason with them, ran up against immovable positions and simply desisted rather than exploding in remonstrative pejorations.
I have managed to become old due to similar cowardice IRL as well. Little more astounds me, TBQH. I was pretty sure I'd never get through puberty alive, and to have cracked 60 is utterly baffling.