censorship

Consider the merits and demerits of censorship and state your reasons why you think it is un/necessary.


Is there a need to control what is given to the public? Should there be a need to pass media through guidelines before handing it to the public? Is there really a need for censorship? Personally, I feel that censorship is needed at least to some extend.

Censorship is needed to protect the “innocent minds” in the public. As most sources, like the television, are free and open, they can be easily accessible to young minds, which are easily influence. For example, children who are exposed to too much violence might grow up to have a tendency to violence. Also, some content contain adult issues that children may not understand, having an immature mind watching it can cause misunderstanding with in the child. These children grow up thinking morally different from the norm. Thus, there is a need to control what is being shown when to protect the interests of these “innocent minds”.

Another merit of censorship is to protect the interests of certain groups and prevent conflicts. This mainly pertains to race and religion. As both are sensitive issues, it is important to handle them with care. Censorship maintains a certain level of respect due to each group, keeping them satisfied. Without this, it would be easy to hurl insults and cause dissatisfaction between groups. This can easily result in racial riots or riots cause because of religion. Thus, a merit of censorship is to maintain the delicate balance between racial or religious groups.

Censorship allows gives the government control, allowing them to control issues that are being brought to the people. This also concerns national security, as the government can remove anti-government material before they stir up feelings in the people. It protects the government from external threats against their government, benefiting the people indirectly as they would have a stable government.

However, censorship does have its demerits, censorship takes away the freedom people have, the freedom of speech and expression. It takes away from the people the right that they should have to express themselves. With censorship, their creativity and artistic minds get constrain, and they are no longer able to let their minds run freely. Censorship also takes away the freedom of information, as it removes information and put it under constrains. People are not able to gather information as they should be without censorship.

Censorship also allows for propaganda. This happen when a government censor all other articles and only allow articles that are for their government to pass. People are no longer able to read different views other then those that support their government. Many examples of this can be found in history, where censorship is use by the government to minimize resistance from the masses.

All in all, censorship does have its merits and demerits. It may be good to a certain line, but it’s a fine line and hard to balance. Still, it is important to some extend as it helps to give a certain control over the media and information. Freedom may seem like a good thing, but sometimes a little control is better. Still, over censorship is not a good thing either. Thus, I support balance of censorship and freedom.