Censorship

Censorship —— Suppressing of Thought, Information and Fact

Censorship, a kind of ways which is used to distinguish the connotation of information by some organs such as government, religious group or private association. The basic purpose of censorship is to wipe baneful, sensitive information off or sift beneficial messages for the person who will browse those messages. Anyway, censorship is just a modality, if it is abused without control, common people's liberty of speech and expression would be terribly obstructed so in some countries, censorship usually is linked with dictatorship. Nowadays, censorship becomes the medium of some organizations to grab personal benefit and keep the populace away from hidden truth. In dynasty Qin of China, the emperor had burned the books and buried scholars by censorship.
 * -Introduction of Censorship **

**__//Political censorship//__** This censorship's executor is the government. For populace, the government mainly checks whether the object's thought is modern, morality is nice, style of work is honest or not. If the object has criminal record, has relative do something that imperil the safety of county, has relative in prison, he would not pass the censorship. For the former own, when the government want to hide, twist some political scandals, it would check the news media and wipe off the disadvantages. If it is essential, government can dispatch the army and police, use force to erase everything about the scandals.
 * -Main Types of Censorship **


 * // Censorship of Educational Sources //** Text books of teenagers all have been censored by the bureau of education, some contents are deleted or altered. Usually the aspect of history is most controversial, many truths were hidden by the government, in general nobody would receive them. In addition, some religious groups would also like to obstruct the subject that may against their belief. School's physical education should be reasonable for government as well. However, in the public schools, the censorship still be executed by government. In China which is social country, this censorship obviously.

**//Censorship of Science//** For this type censorship, the most classical example is Galileo Galilei, his achievement shook the rule of church so his study did not be admitted at that time. Therefore, once a science damages the rulers' benefit, that is not doubt it would be erased. Sometimes even an invention of rulers has many disadvantages, organ of the rulers may still advertise for that because it can bring benefit. For the other example, in China a medical college of the Communist Party develop new medicine which can make people not sleep for three days, the official all think it is a great invention but nobody cares that main composition of the medicine is ICE, a kind of drugs.

//** Censorship of State Secret **// Loose lips sink ships, the price of leaking military intelligence perhaps be fatal. The name suggests that the censorship is used to keep the secret of country. During the World War 1, the sergeant used to check soldier's letter and black the sensitive info on it. At present, this kind of censorship also be used in politics and international relations. As everyone knows, China had made up nuclear weapons. However, nobody even Chinese people knows how many they are, where they are. In the event, evert piece of info of Chinese nuclear weapon is a state secret, the high level leaders never disclose.

//**Censorship of Popular Culture**// The type that is most closed to populace's life because ubiquitous culture have infiltrated human's life. Popular culture include music, TV, movies, video games. The relevant departments like SARFT must ensure those media have no bad content. SARFT thinks that propagation of bad info would initiate turbulence of society. For some black people countries like South Africa, all songs, movies that have racial discrimination can not appear.

· Prevents the corrupting of the children. · Prevents the conflicts of religions. · Preserves the secrets of a country. · Hides sensitive military information, which could be used by enemy. · Ensure people cannot copy dangerous stunts shown on TV or movies. · Books may be used to portray wrong information about individualism or groups that could incite violence against them. Censorship would definitely prove helpful here. · Prevents politically motivated propaganda. · Protects the privacy of people. · Prevents plagiarism. · Abusive scenes in movies may offend some people. Censorship prevents that. · Protects indigenous cultures from the bad influence of foreign cultures. · Prevents the public display of disrespect to any particular individual or community. · Prevents companies from spreading inaccurate or grossly exaggerated claims about their products. · Promotes political correctness. · Terrorists are prevented from learning about dangerous technology like the atom bomb. · Children are prevented from learning things that could harm them and others. · Prevents the ill effects of globalization affecting societies. · Shields the morals of society. · Restrains vulgarity and obscenity. · The surfeit of violence in movies and TV is restricted by it. · Prevents violence by stopping the broadcast of events, which might trigger it.
 * -Pros of Censorship **

· If sex-related topics are completely censored it becomes difficult to teach children and teenagers about the dangers of HIV/AIDS. · Dictators and dictatorship use it to promote a flattering image of themselves and for removing any information that is negative to them. · Freedom of speech is compromised. · Religious fundamentalists like the Taliban use them to coerce the population. · It encroaches upon the freedom of the press. · It prevents the free flow of ideas. · It may intrude on the privacy of a person. · Withholding of information only leads to ignorance in the society. · Censoring of information may lead to a wrong image perceived by the public. · It is generally associated with dictatorship. · Censorship in books, plays and movies may compromise their entertainment value. · Censorship has been misused in the past. · It is a force against globalization. · It works against creativity. · If you hide something from people they will become extra curious about it. · It has no place in a truly democratic society. · It gives rise to and hides human rights abuses. · It is used to control people. · There can be different standards of morals among different societies quite different from the imposed ones by the censorship. · It may be used to block legitimate criticism. · Governments should not control people. It should be the other way round. · Individuals have different tastes. · It stifles the opposition, broadcasting only a particular point of view. · People have a right to know.
 * -Cons of Censorship **

-Connection to ANTHEM In the book //ANTHEM// which is written by Ayn Rand, there is a council which judges an invention is established or not. The censorship that council use is same as the real censorship in form. But in essence, they are different. For the real one, no matter how the censorship is utilized for other purposes, its original intention is for the social moral. Nevertheless, in //ANTHEM//, the censorship is immediately utilized for the rule, the goal of it is to erase each thing that would change people's mind. As a result real censorship is not as absolute as in // ANTHEM //.


 * Link：**
 * @http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship**
 * @http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pros-and-cons-of-censorship.html**
 * **http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_censorship****
 * **http://gilc.org/speech/osistudy/censorship/****
 * **http://www.serendipity.li/cda.html****