Censorship – RationalWiki

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