“Censorship is bad” yeah, sure, I agree. But the fact that you still know it’s a curse word means it’s not really censoring anything.
Curse words are so common now that they’ve lost a bit of their oomph. They’re supposed to convey intensity, but they’re used so casually that they’re basically lazy filler.
A strike through line, or a box that doesn’t quite cover, reintroduces a bit of the taboo. This is a bad, naughty word, you shouldn’t be reading it. You know what it is, but attempting to cover it draws attention to the fact that it’s something some people want to cover, which reintroduces some of the oomph.
It’s kinda like sequined pasties at a nudist colony; it turns something that was once taboo, but had since been normalized, back to taboo again to reclaim some of the intensity.
I’m talking about perception, intention is beyond the scope of this opinion.
In any case, the censorship draws attention to the swear in a world where swearing is so casual as to become invisible. I’m going to repeat my analogy of tasseled pasties at a nudist colony.
There are other ways to add intensity, sure, the same things you can do to any other word. But censorship is a technique specific to swears that specifically highlights their vulgarity. The other methods don’t carry quite the same specific subtext.