Category Archives: Censorship

What are Censorship? Censorships are the acts of adjusting, editing, banning, or altering products, expressions, or items considered to be elicit, unlawful, lewd, or objectionable in nature with regard to the setting in which they exist. Although both the parameters and protocol surrounding the wide range of procedure latent within censorships, which can range in nature from broad to particular, a bulk of the classification of materials subject to censorships exist in tandem with applicable legislation based of locale, intent, and the nature of the expression, activity, or item in question.

Legality of Censorship Censorships taking place do so enacting the precepts of Administrative Law. Administrative Law is the legal field associated with events and circumstances in which the Federal Government of the United States engages its citizens. This includes the administration of government programs, the creation of agencies, and the establishment of a legal, regulatory federal standard, and any other procedural legislation enacted between the government and its citizens.

Classification of Censorship The legality applied to the natures of censorships with regard to acts, expressions, and depictions may vary in context with the motivation behind censorships imposed; this means that censorships can take place upon the analysis of the content latent within the item or expression in question or the intent inherent within the item in question. For example, while certain expressions may be tolerated within certain settings, those same expressions may not be permitted in others:

The Miller v. California case was one in which Marvin Miller, who dealt in the sale of products considered to be sexual in nature, was arraigned with regard to advertisements of his products in a public setting that were presumed to be in violation of the California penal code; although the products that he was selling were not expressly illegal, the setting in which they existed were considered to be a violation Justice Earl Warren mandated that lewd material did not belong in a public sector.

Privacy is a state in which an individual is free to act according to their respective discretion with regard to legal or lawful behavior; however, regardless of the private sector, the adherence to legislation and legality is required with regard to the activity or expression in question

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Censorship - Censorship | Laws.com

Subsections

In the United States, we have the First Amendment of the Constitution that guarantees us certain things.

Censorship and free speech are often seen as being two sides of the same thing, censorship often defined as ``the suppression of free speech''. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with this definition, but for my purposes, I find I need better definitions. My definitions have no particular force, of course, but when grappling with problems, one must often clearly define things before one can even begin discussing the problem, let alone solving it. Thus, I will establish my own personal definitions. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the traditional definitions, but it turns out that the analysis I want to do is not possible with a fuzzy conception of what ``free speech'' is.

It's typically bad essay form to start a section with a dictionary definition, but since I want to contrast my definition with the conventional dictionary definition, it's hard to start with anything else. Free speech is defined by dictionary.com as

Since I don't want to define free speech in terms of censorship, lets remove that and put in its place what people are really afraid of.

Considering both the target of the speech and the publisher of the speech is necessary. Suppose I use an Earthlink-hosted web page to criticise a Sony-released movie. If Earthlink can suppress my speech for any reason they please (on the theory that they own the wires and the site hosting), and have no legal or ethical motivation to not suppress the speech, then in theory, all Sony would have to do is convince Earthlink it is in their best interest to remove my site. The easiest way to do that is simply cut Earthlink a check exceeding the value to Earthlink of continuing to host my page, which is a trivial amount of money to Sony. In the absence of any other considerations, most people would consider this a violation of my right to ``free speech'', even though there may be nothing actually illegal in this scenario. So if we allow the owner of the means of expression to shut down our speech for any reason they see fit, it's only a short economic step to allow the target of the expression to have undue influence, especially an age where the gap between one person's resources and one corporation's resources continues to widen.

Hence the legal concept of a common carrier, both obligated to carry speech regardless of content and legally protected from the content of that speech. The ``safe harbor'' provisions in the DMCA, which further clarified this in the case of online message transmission systems, is actually a good part of the DMCA often overlooked by people who read too much Slashdot and think all of the DMCA is bad. The temptation to hold companies like Earthlink responsible for the content of their customers arises periodically, but it's important to resist this, because there's almost no way to not abuse the corresponding power to edit their customer's content.

I also change ``opinion'' to expression, to better fit the context of this definition, and let's call this ``the right to free speech'':

Though it's not directly related to the definition of free speech, I'd like to add that we expect people to fund their expressions of free speech themselves, and the complementary expectation that nobody is obligated to fund speech they disagree with. For instance, we don't expect people to host comments that are critical about them on their own site.

By far the most important thing that this definition captures that the conventional definitions do not is the symmetry required of true free speech. Free speech is not merely defined in terms of the speakers, but also the listeners.

For structural symmetry with the Free Speech section, let's go ahead and start with the dictionary definition:

The best way to understand my definition of censoring is to consider the stereotypical example of military censorship. During World War II, when Allied soldiers wrote home from the front, all correspondence going home was run through [human] censors to remove any references that might allow someone to place where that soldier was, what that soldier was armed with, etc. The theory was that if that information was removed, it couldn't end up in the hands of the enemy, which could be detrimental to the war effort. The soldier (sender) sent the message home (receiver) via the postal service as a letter (medium). The government censors intercepted that message and modified it before sending it on. If the censor so chose, they could even completely intercept the letter and prevent anything from reaching home.

This leads me naturally to my basic definition of censorship:

There is one last thing that we must take into account, and that is the middleman. Newspapers often receive a press release, but they may process, digest, and editorialize on the basis of that press release, not simply run the press release directly. The Internet is granting astonishing new capabilities to the middlemen, in addition to making the older ways of pre-processing information even easier, and we should not label those all as censorship.

Fortunately, there is a simple criterion we can apply. Do both the sender and the receiver agree to use this information middleman? If so, then no censorship is occurring. This seems intuitive; newspapers aren't really censoring, they're just being newspapers.

You could look at this as not being censorship only as long as the middlemen are being truthful about what sort of information manipulation they are performing. You could equally well say that it is impossible to characterize how a message is being manipulated because a message is such a complicated thing once you take context into account. Basically, since this is simply a side-issue that won't gain us anything, so we leave it to the sender, receiver, and middleman to defend their best interests. It takes the agreement of all three to function, which can be removed at any time, so there is always an out.

For example, many news sites syndicate headlines and allow anybody to display them, including mine. If a news site runs two articles, one for some position and one against, and some syndication user only runs one of the stories, you might claim that distorts the meaning of the original articles taken together. Perhaps this is true, but if the original news site was worried about this occurring, perhaps those stories should not have been syndicated, or perhaps they should have been bound more tightly together, or perhaps this isn't really a distortion. Syndication implies that messages will exist in widely varying contexts.

Like anything else, there is some flex room here. The really important point is to agree that the criterion is basically correct. We can argue about the exact limits later.

So, my final definition:

Going back to the original communication model I outlined earlier, the critical difference between the two definitions becomes clear. Free speech is defined in terms of the endpoints, in terms of the rights of the senders and receivers. Censorship is defined in terms of control over the medium.

The methods of suppressing free speech and the methods of censoring are very different. Suppression of free speech tends to occur through political or legal means. Someone is thrown in jail for criticizing the government, and the police exert their power to remove the controversial content from the Internet. On the receiver's side, consider China, which is an entire country who's government has decided that there are publicly available sites on the Internet that will simply not be available to anybody in that country, such as the Wall Street Journal. Suppressing free speech does not really require a high level of technology, just a high level of vigilance, which all law enforcement requires anyhow.

Censorship, on the other hand, is taking primarily technological forms. Since messages flow on the Internet at speeds vastly surpassing any human's capabilities to understand or process, technology is being developed that attempts to censor Internet content, with generally atrocious results. (A site called Peacefire http://www.peacefire.org has been good at documenting the failures of some of the most popular censorware, as censoring software is known.) Nevertheless, the appeal of such technology to some people is such that in all likelihood, money will continue to be thrown at the problem until some vaguely reasonable method of censorship is found.

The ways of combating suppression of free speech and censorship must also differ. Censorship is primarily technological, and thus technological answers may be found to prevent censorship, though making it politically or legally unacceptable can work. Suppression of free speech, on the other hand, is primarily political and legal, and in order to truly win the battle for free speech, political and legal power will need to be brought to bear.

These definitions are crafted to fit into the modern model of communication I am using, and I have defined them precisely enough that hopefully we can recognize it when we see it, because technology-based censorship can take some truly surprising forms, which we'll see as we go.

See the article here:
Censorship and Free Speech - jerf.org

Politically, there exists only what the public knows to exist. ("Politicamente, s existe aquilo que o pblico sabe que existe.")

Censorship usually refers to the state's engaging in activities designed to suppress certain information or ideas. In the past, this has been done by burning books, jailing dissidents, and swamping people with government propaganda. In modern times, the same techniques can be used, but in places like China it is complemented with a nation-wide Internet firewall and the co-option of journalists.

More generally, the term is also used any time people in positions of power try to prevent facts or ideas embarrassing to them from coming to light. This can be done by editorial boards of periodicals and journals, by restricting what their writers can actually research or write about, or by restricting and censoring what they do write, preventing it from being published. This can be done for many reasons, including due to fairly legitimate issues of style, or topics that editors just don't think are right for their publication. This type of censorship is not (and probably should not be) illegal; to force a journal or web site to promote ideas the owners and editors find anathema would be a violation of free speech. Actual censorship, however, is usually done much more maliciously and threats (financial, legal or physical) can be made to prevent something going to publication.

One pernicious result of this "right to not publish" can result in a form of censorship wherein all "major" outlets of information are owned by large corporations, which tend to have certain interests in common, and might, as a group, make it very hard to find information critical of those interests.

Censorship can also come from a government level, and it is this that is usually considered the worst kind of censorship. While individual corporations or private ventures have a right to control the information they host, and their readers are welcome to go elsewhere for their information, governments have a hold over everybody without exception. This leads to a population at large being denied information and more often than not, forcibly fed incorrect information. It should be noted that, while citizens in most Western countries are safe against government censorship (for the most part, at least), other places have almost completely state-run media where literally no alternative exists for the public to access their information. In recent years, China has been somewhat notorious in censoring large portions of the internet from its citizens.

In modern times, due to ubiquitous channels of mass communication, a kind of censorship can be performed (intentionally or otherwise) by swamping the people with other information to hide some particular point. This form of censorship is associated with the Huxleyan flavour of dystopia (e.g. Brave New World),[1] in which pleasurable, visceral, immediate, concrete stimuli (e.g., supermodels, baby bumps, or Charlie Sheen) crowd out troubling, cerebral, long-range, abstract stimuli (e.g., global warming, nuclear safety, the epidemiological consequences of vaccination refusal).[2]

Counterprotests "shouting down" a group of people are sometimes accused of being censorship, but since they don't usually actually prevent or deny the free expression of what they are protesting, again, this is not really censorship. But the waters can get murky at times!

Also, there is the now almost time-honored way of releasing "bad" political news - do it on Friday evening, after the major news outlets have wrapped up their stories. By Monday, it's not news any more, and often gets much less attention that it might have otherwise. This was brought to light when someone mentioned that 11th September 2001 was a "good day to bury bad news".[3]

The United States has recently seen more use of this insidious form of censorship. In order to "accommodate" demonstrators at high-profile events, they are shepherded into a pre-assigned area rather being allowed their right of free assembly. These areas are usually placed well out of the media spotlight - for instance, at the 2004 Democratic Party Convention in Boston, the "free speech zone" was some distance away from the building where the convention was held - in a wasteland of construction debris and fences under a roadway that was partially dismantled.

The Bible has at times been noted as containing unsuitable content which would likely result in its censorship in some areas were it not for its religious significance. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, Bible translations into local languages were often censored or prohibited.

It is often claimed by conspiracy theorists or people attacking the Christian religion that a large number of books were rejected or suppressed from the official Bible in order to hide divine revelation or to prevent embarrassment. This is highly misleading. While there are a large number of apocryphal religious Jewish and Christian religious texts, very few of them were ever widely regarded as authentic. Of the early apocryphal works, only The Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Gospel of the Hebrews ever appeared to have much currency outside of small sub-groups of Christians, and even they were considered widely controversial or noted as being "despised" by many early members of the Church. The books which today make up the New Testament are believed to have all originated in the first or second centuries CE, and the contents of those works are considered to be very well preserved, with only a few notable differences (most notably the end of the Gospel of Mark, which may have been written after the rest of the Gospel).

Many of the apocryphal religious writings were censored by the early Church; it is noted that the Apocalypse of Peter was, at one point, forbidden to be read in Church, presumably indicating that they did not consider it to be holy scripture.

One notable example of a highly successful piece of apocryphal writing was the Book of Mormon, written by Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints. It was first published in 1830, a very long time after other biblical apocrypha had been dismissed; it is universally rejected by all other Christian sects. There have been numerous other, less successful attempts at creating new Christian canon.

This varies depending on the country and local views and laws.

Many "rental" and even "on sale" videos are censored. Scenes involving nudity, especially of the male frontal variety, are usually removed. Sometimes one will see both versions on offer, with different ratings on the box. When offered as television broadcasts, similar steps are also taken, with additional editing often employed to make the film fit its time slot. This is sometimes done to lower the level of gore for a film to be broadcast at particular times. For American television in particular, bad words (which are considered worse than all-out gun-toting violence) are also bleeped, cut, or voiced over.

In some parts of continental Europe there is almost no censorship of sexual scenes. In Spain, for example, late-night free-to-air local channels may broadcast uncut hardcore pornography.

In the UK, the BBFC will not censor movies without the permission of the film's producers, but this censorship may be necessary in order to give the movie a specific rating. For example, to preserve its PG rating, Star Wars Episode II is censored to remove a headbutt that would have given the film a 12A rating if it had been left in. Similar guidelines apply for nudity and bad language.

On television, most types of nudity are usually allowed to be shown after the "watershed" of 9pm, except for shots of an erect penis, which are forbidden. Scenes of simulated sexual activity are permitted; real depictions of sex are typically not.

Censorship of books has often included an outright ban on publication. D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" was not legally printed in the UK until 1960, for example. Its publishing was part of possibly the greatest social upheaval of the 20th century; the prosecutor asked if the book was one which "you would wish your wife or servants to read" (it used the word "cunt" - shock, horror!) This sort of censorship persists to the modern day, with the works of authors such as Judy Blume being frequently challenged.

Other censorship can occur for the less blatant but more insidious reason of marketability. The third "Hitchiker's Guide" books, Life, the Universe and Everything, was censored for the American market. Two occurrences of "Asshole" were changed to "Kneebiter," and "The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word 'Fuck' In A Serious Screenplay." was altered to "The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Belgium" in a Serious Screenplay."

Producers of films also engage in two kinds of self censorship. Sometimes, just one scene or shot is all that it takes to change a film's rating. Both kinds involve paying attention to the "standards" while making the film in order to achieve the desired rating. Sometimes, a movie-maker seeks to obtain a lower rating by reducing objectionable material, possibly due to a contractual obligation to keep the film below a certain level, or simply for marketing purposes - G-rated movies have a different target audience, and PG-13 movies have historically been considered to have the largest audience demographic. Filmmakers most especially try to avoid NC-17 ratings or the local equivalent, as many theater chains will refuse to show such movies, greatly reducing their potential profitability.

In a related phenomenon, other times, a film-maker seeks to obtain a higher rating in order to promote the film's "adultness", usually to teenagers who wouldn't be caught dead paying to watch a "family friendly" movie, or simply because the audience will misunderstand what the movie is about if it gets a lower rating. A movie which might otherwise be rated G or PG might have a single instance of cursing inserted into it in order to raise its rating to PG-13, thereby presenting the film as being targeted towards its proper demographic.

Film-makers will sometimes attempt to game the system by including a scene or a line intending for it to be rejected by the producers or studio, either in order to "negotiate" down to the material that they really want to include while still pretending to be reasonable, or in order to distract the raters from other potentially objectionable material. This material occasionally is not rejected, and thus ends up in the final product, while at other times the rejected material may be used in promotional material before being cut from the final edit of the film. One example is the line "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school", from Fight Club, which was originally presented as "I want to have your abortion" as the line they could back down from, although the original line is included as a deleted scene on the Fight Club DVD. (The latter line "I want to have your abortion" was actually the original line from the book.[4])

The line between self-censorship and simple editing is not always clear-cut; people may cut out unimportant material simply because they feel it would distract or bother the audience, and thereby better present their true artistic vision or moral of the work, or simply for marketing reasons where their goal is simply to produce something to be consumed.

Lately, in several countries, a new form of censorship has been afoot. Unlike with previous forms, its promoters and practitioners not only pretend to be "committed to free speech," but also to be advocating or carrying out the censorship in the name of promoting or enforcing human rights.

Specifically, they have provided "hate speech" laws and (in some cases) special "human rights" tribunals, which function in the following manner:

This went on with little remark for many years, since the only people being convicted were neo-Nazis who advocated violence against Jews and other non-neo-Nazi groups.

That situation has changed with the designation of two new groups as "protected": Muslims and gays. Unlike race, both homosexuality and adherence to Islam are held by a significant sector of the population to be a "mutable" characteristic; homosexuality being deemed that way by proponents of reparative therapy, while adherence to Islam being indisputably so (arguably some Muslims will tell you apostasy results in capital punishment, but places with such practices are unlikely to have freedom of speech anyway). This means that, unlike in the cases of racism or anti-Semitism, much of the opposition to Islam and (to a lesser degree) homosexuality is not based in hate. Hence, prosecution of "hate speech" on these grounds is often regarded as ideological censorship.

In the U.K., the acquittal of Nick Griffin on the charge of calling Islam a "wicked vicious faith" spurred the enactment of a new hate speech law, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, specifically targeting blasphemy offensive speech on the grounds of one's religion.

In Canada, when the Western Standard magazine published the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, a human rights complaint was brought against the magazine's publisher, Ezra Levant. Alan Borovoy, a lawyer who had helped make the human-rights laws under which the complaint was made, stated that the laws had not at all been intended to be used in such a manner.[5] The complainant, Syed Soharwardy, later withdrew it, saying he had gotten a better understanding of freedom of speech and now thought he might be abusing the laws.[6]

When certain advocacy groups are unable to convince the government to censor content that they deem offensive, those groups often establish an "advisory board." These boards then advise like-minded people to avoid certain films, books, TV shows, etc. Sometimes these groups are relatively weak, so they come off as more annoying than ominous. Others make it their mission to influence public policy. Some religious organizations, however, have gone a step further, since most religious leaders have no qualms about bullying their followers into obeying their demands.

In the early 20th century, the Catholic Church established the Legion of Decency to "advise" parishioners on which movies to avoid at the risk of condemning their immortal souls to everlasting hellfire. No, really! Catholics were told that if they watched certain movies, they were committing a cardinal sin and that they would go to hell for willfully disobeying the Church. Even future Oscar winning films weren't spared the wrath of the Legion.[7]

Other such advisory boards include:

Some people who promote censorship aren't closet totalitarians. Sometimes they're just nuts.

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Censorship - RationalWiki

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In May 2013, School Library Journal underwent a major server migration for its archived web content, which happened slightly sooner than originally expected. As a result, much of the content from 2004 to 2012 is currently unavailable to the public.

However, this content has not been lost, and ourweb staff is in the process of converting these past articles for integration into the WordPress-based website you see here, which was launched in 2012. Many of these older articles have already been restored, and more will continue to be restored on an ongoing basis as they are cleaned up. Ultimately, this migration will allow for greater discoverability of all archived SLJ content, both on the website and across the Web in general.

Keep in mind that the article youre looking for may already have been restored to the new site. CLICK HERE TO SEARCH FOR IT BY TITLE (this link will open in a new browser). If you still arent able to find it, return to this page and try the form below

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Things That Keep Us Up at Night

Sarah Tew/CNET

Following dipping sales, Sony this week announced a price drop for the PS4 in Japan. But the company's home turf isn't the only Asian country giving it grief, with China presenting a unique set of challenges.

"We are still challenged somewhat with a censorship regime that we have to work with," Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House told Reuters at the Tokyo Game Show on Thursday. "This can be time-consuming."

The PS4 launched in China back in March, a little over a year after the country's government revoked a ban on gaming consoles that had been in place for 14 years. However, China's censorship minefield has proven difficult for Sony to traverse: Only six launch titles accompanied the PS4 upon its release.

"I don't think it has been a kind of rocket launch start," House admitted, but added that he thinks there's "tremendous potential for gaming as an entertainment medium in China." The numbers certainly agree -- last year China's gaming population exceeded the entire population of the USA.

Titles released alongside the console, which retails for 2,899 yuan ($455), include Rayman Legends, Knack, and Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition. Noticeably absent are mega-popular western titles like Grand Theft Auto 5 or Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

The slim gaming portfolio officially available to Chinese gamers is not surprising given the country's censorship regulations. Any game deemed to promote drug use, violence, gambling or obscenity is immediately withdrawn from consideration of distribution.

Sony isn't the only one struggling though -- Microsoft last year launched the Xbox One in the country along with around 10 titles. However, though the Xbox has a few more games available, it's region locked, while the PS4 is not. This means that Chinese players can import and play games from around the world for Sony's console (at the risk of a fine) but not Microsoft's.

In July, research institute Niko Partners estimated that the combined number of Xbox Ones and PS4s sold in 2015 would be under 550,000, though this doesn't take into account sales of gaming hardware and software sold in China's widely used grey market.

Read more here:
Sony says China's censorship laws are stifling PS4 sales ...

Censorship is the suppression of statements or information for ideological reasons. Current examples of censorship include:

Political censorship involves a government preventing information from reaching its citizens. Perhaps the best-known contemporary example of this is China's censorship of the Google search engine, known as the "Golden Shield Project", which prevents Google from displaying search results of some human rights websites, websites promoting Tibetan independence, references to the 1989 Tianamen Square protests, and others. A famous example in fiction is George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which the main character works as a civil servant in the department responsible for altering or destroying historical information which the government wishes to keep secret. The rationale behind political censorship is that the political party in power can protect itself from revolution if the public is kept uninformed.

The term censorship derives from censor, the title of the Roman official who conducted the census and supervised public morality.

In the United States, the First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Broadly speaking, the First Amendment is designed to prevent the government from exercising censorship. However, the government sometimes censors political and religious speech anyway.

More specifically, the government should not exercise "prior restraint." That is, a citizen should not need advance permission from the government in order to publish something, unless it threatens national security. This does not mean that publication may not have consequences: a citizen can be sued for publishing libel, or incarcerated for disclosing military secrets, but the consequences typically occur after publication, not before.

Censorship is sometimes applied to prohibit obscenity that goes against common standards of public morality; under US law the first amendment does not protect material considered legally obscene. The definition of obscenity has and continues to vary, with the current Supreme Court definition being the Miller test. In practical terms, this allows harmful material such as pornography to be criminalized without violating the First Amendment.

Censorship may also be directed at religious ideas, as in the Saudi Arabian prohibition on preaching Christianity, liberal restrictions on public expressions of religion, or the Roman Catholic Church's now-recinded Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Certain language and images that may have been censored in the past are typically common fare in the American media today. On the other hand, while nudity, for example, may be acceptable on mainstream French television, that is much less likely to be accepted in American television and even less acceptable in conservative Muslim countries.

Contrast with:

Original post:
Censorship - Conservapedia

Censorship blocks something from being read, heard, or seen. If you've ever heard the sound of bleeping when someone is speaking on television, that's censorship.

To "censor" is to review something and to choose to remove or hide parts of it that are considered unacceptable. Censorship is the name for the process or idea of keeping things like obscene word or graphic images from an audience. There is also such a thing as self-censorship, which is when you refrain from saying certain things or possibly re-wording them depending on who is listening.

Definitions of censorship

1

censorship in the form of prudish expurgation

censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality

the act of deleting something written or printed

all types of censorship conducted by personnel of the armed forces

censorship under civil authority of communications entering or leaving of crossing the borders of the United States or its territories or possessions

military censorship of civilian communications (correspondence or printed matter of films) entering or leaving of circulating within territories controlled by armed forces

security review of news (including all information or material intended for dissemination to the public) subject to the jurisdiction of the armed forces

military censorship of communication to and from prisoners of war and civilian internees held by the armed forces

military censorship of personal communications to or from persons in the armed forces

intelligence activities concerned with identifying and counteracting the threat to security posed by hostile intelligence organizations or by individuals engaged in espionage or sabotage or subversion or terrorism

Read more here:
censorship - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

For clarification of my quote, "Anything posted of REAL (mind the emphases on REAL) activity of illegal actions that would be considered a federal crime such as child pornography isn't really in the realm of being censored or not, it's simply not even within the question.", the reasoning behind this is that of which it is a federal crime. Being a federal crime generally excepts the ideal principal that the vast majority see's it to be wrong and without question filtered. However, because this action is done out of the will of the vast majority of people, it would not be considered censorship because of its highly undemocratic characteristic.

Now, my opponent brings into the light of how the UK has treated certain kinds of hate speech causing him to rather agree with their actions. First of all, I hypocritically applaud the UK for banning Michael Savage and his arrogant racist bigotry. Unfortunately I feel it's the wrong approach by a government to blacklist an ideology. Even IF that said ideology was racist, hateful, and outright false. I guess this would be a reflection of me living in my country as well. You see we have a party here in our country that is hateful and outright false all the time but we as a nation do nothing to restrict there speech because we feel it is their democratic right, to speak their minds. I'm talking of course about the republican party. (zing)

Needless to say that just because I feel these parties should have protected speech does not mean that I feel that they should be above the law. Its really just a matter of free speech, press and assembly. If these particular parties actually commit acts of hate than that's another story.

Seems we've stumbled upon a semantics debate. It really comes down to what you view censorship as. For me, censorship is the restriction of speech, press etc. committed by a 2nd party to a specific group or persons against their will. Pro believes censorship can be an act of voluntarism.

<"Being a federal crime generally excepts the ideal principal that the vast majority see's it to be wrong"

It actually reflects the fact that the government see it as wrong; Governments create laws, not the general public.

<"because this action is done out of the will of the vast majority of people, it would not be considered censorship because of its highly undemocratic characteristic."

Anything a democratically elected government does is technically democratic, including censorship.

___

<"I feel it's the wrong approach by a government to blacklist an ideology."

No ideology is blacklisted by UK hate speech laws, (see sources in debate I linked above,) it's legal to be a bigot, it's only when you start encouraging others to perform violence that you break the laws. Con wants politicians speech protected, but would this still be the case if a party openly preached a doctrine of murder or genocide?

Free speech laws don't and shouldn't protect those who commit fraud through verbal dishonesty, those who shout out "bomb!" in a crowded airport, or those who incite violence and hate.

___

<"Seems we've stumbled upon a semantics debate. It really comes down to what you view censorship as. For me, censorship is the restriction of speech, press etc. committed by a 2nd party to a specific group or persons against their will. Pro believes censorship can be an act of voluntarism."

The definition we have is indeed a very broad one. Suppression of harmful material by the government would clearly include child porn etc., while "media outlets" suggests it covers voluntary self-censorship.

Since Con supplied the definition himself and is in favour of both of these forms of censorship, it seems he has conceded his position as Con towards the resolution. If he wanted to limit the debate to exterior, enforced censorship of legal activity, he should really have made it clear at the outset.

Thanks.

See the article here:
Debate Issue: Censorship | Debate.org

First of all, my opponent is trying to turn this debate into a moral issue. Morality should never be the basis of government. Justice and fairness should be.

Pro, argues that this debate is no about "Can the government censor?" but about "Should they?" As I stated previously no they shouldn't. Just because something is allowed, doesn't mean we should do it. I can stuff my face with 10 slices of pizza, does it mean I should? No

Pro, also mentioned I have not given example why censorship is bad. As you can read, I did.

I can give a list why censorship is bad in all corners. Here we go.

1. Dictators use censorship to promote a flattering image of themselves and for removing any information that goes against them. Whose to say the government can't do this too?

2. Political parties around the world already use media censorship for their own benefit. It stifles the opposition, broadcasting only a particular point of view.

3. Censorship makes us believe what were are told, not what we are not. Why do conspiracy theorists exist? Because they believe the government isn't telling us something.

4. Area 51, 9/11, New World Order. Do you really think the gorvernment should keep all those things censored.

5. It makes the US complete hyprocite. The Constitution says we have Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion, Petition and Protest, so why does the gorvernment censor this? For there own benefit.

Thank you. By the way, the voters can vote for whoever they want. Vote whatever you like! 🙂

As to his rebuttals, they are also contradictory. I have not said that he did not give instances of bad censorship, I merely pointed out that a few bad examples does not imply that censorship in all circumstances is immoral. I would like to point out that my opponent has done nothing to refute my ethical system of utilitarianism or propose one of his own that is not logically contradictory. Under my ethical system, government should censor when the results of said censorship maximize happiness or minimize pain. Until my opponent addresses this point, I should be considered the winner.

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Debate Argument: Censorship | Debate.org

ENTERTAINMENT

December 19, 2013 | By Hector Tobar

This week, the Kids' Right to Read Project, a group that monitors book censorship, said the number of challenges to books reported to the group increased by 53% in 2013. Project coordinator Acacia O'Connor told Shelf Awareness that she could not explain the increase, but that many involved writers of color, including Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. (All three also appear regularly on American Booksellers Assn. lists of challenged books.) Whether or not patterns like this are the result of coordination between would-be censors across the country is impossible to say, O'Connor told Shelf Awareness.

ENTERTAINMENT

July 17, 2013 | By Julie Makinen

BEIJING -- Chinese authorities said Wednesday they would relax some restrictions on film, TV and radio productions, though the immediate impact of the changes was unclear and several prominent movie directors said they did not believe the reforms were game-changers. Chinese filmmakers will now be allowed to shoot ordinary content movies after only submitting a synopsis to censors rather than a full script, according to an announcement from the State Council, China's cabinet. But the finished products will still have to be screened for censors before they are approved to be played in theaters.

ENTERTAINMENT

June 26, 2013 | By Alexander Nazaryan

Eight years ago, a New York journalist named Peter Braunstein, then 41, forced his way into the apartment of a 34-year-old Manhattan woman by pretending to be a firefighter. He proceeded to drug the woman, a former colleague, and sexually assault her for more than 12 hours. Now, as he serves a lengthy prison sentence in upstate New York, Braunstein is apparently upset that corrections officials there are not allowing him to read Jaycee Dugard's A Stolen Life, the 2011 memoir of a young woman's kidnapping and 18-year imprisonment by a California couple, Phillip and Nancy Garrido, which ended in 2009.

WORLD

April 12, 2013 | By Janet Stobart, This post has been corrected. See note below.

LONDON -- The British Broadcasting Corp. faced a dilemma Friday: Would it play "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" when everyone knows the song has become a biting reference to the late Margaret Thatcher? The network's solution: turn the song into a sound bite. Amid divisive reactions to the death of the former prime minister on Monday, anti-Thatcher protesters have campaigned to bring the song from the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" to the top of the charts in time for a BBC program Sunday night that counts down the current top hits.

WORLD

January 9, 2013 | By Barbara Demick and David Pierson, Los Angeles Times

GUANGZHOU, China - Like wedding guests separated across the aisle, the protesters assembled on either side of a gated driveway at the headquarters of the embattled Southern Weekly newspaper. To the right, several dozen supporters of the newspaper staff waved banners calling for an end to censorship of the Chinese press. "Freedom!" they chanted. "Democracy!" "Constitutional rights!" To the left, beneath fluttering red Chinese flags and hoisted portraits of Mao Tse-tung, a battalion of mostly older men shouted into a microphone, trying to drown out their ideological rivals.

WORLD

January 8, 2013 | By Barbara Demick

GUANGZHOU, China -- Communist Party officials appear to have defused a potential crisis over media censorship in Guangzhou with a compromise that persuaded journalists at a maverick newspaper to publish Thursday as planned. The journalists at Southern Weekly, one of China's boldest and most popular publications, had threatened to strike in protest over a New Year's editorial on political reform that was watered down by propaganda officials. The exact terms of the deal were not released, but it appears that the journalists agreed to refrain from airing their grievances in public about Tuo Zhen, the propaganda chief for Guangdong province accused of the heavy-handed censorship that sparked the standoff.

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Articles about Censorship - latimes