I think the term Orwellian should be used carefully not because of a strategy to censor people but because it tends to accompany and be a symptom of sloppy, armchair thinking that leads to fruitless fights on social media. (similar to Godwin's law)
That's not the point I'm making. I'm saying that as an individual it's a probably a good idea to avoid constructing arguments out of prepackaged notions. Whatever "elites" do isn't the factor I am considering here, especially not NY Times pundits or their equivalent. YMMV