Why Is Censorship Harmful?

The word censorship is from the Latin word root of censere, which means to give an opinion or expression to be judged upon. Censorship is the restriction of certain material, and due to its expression it is seen offensive to someone else. The origin of expression of censorship can be tracked back to the Roman Empire when Roman officials assessed the conduct and attitudes of other Roman citizens. The Roman government viewed that in order to have a strong government, the behavior and conduct of the peopled had to be changed according to what they thought was correct. Censorship continued to be a controversy over time. It remained a controversy over time, through many empires, the age of Enlightenment, World War II, and even today. As censorship progressed through the ages it still continues today. Today, censorship occurs at schools. It occurs in libraries, classrooms, and even in student publications. Even though censorship can occur to a certain extent at schools, students’ First Amendment rights are still protected at school. The First Amendment protects freedom of expression, speech, press, religion, and assembly. Students are allowed to express themselves freely at school as long as they do not affect the education and as long as it is not an activity supported by the school system.

Censorship is defined by Caso as the suppression of speech or any other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive politically incorrect as determined by the government or any other control body (3). Censorship may be justified from the conservative view whereby the free speech can be maltreated where it undermines the customary principles and communal solidity as withheld by a particular community.

Censorship is a concept with several different meanings. To each individual censorship has its own meaning. Is it a violation of our rights or is it a protection for our well being? Censorship in the generic sense refers to the suppression of information, ideas, or opinions. It occurs in all forms of communication from technological media to print media. Each society, culture, or individual's belief is violated by the codes of censorship that our society instills.

While many believe censorship to be a necessity in certain contexts, the idea of censorship is at fault in its attempt to control and stop the advance knowledge of the world today.There is fear of

Censorship: Is It Necessary? A persuasive essay written by Mark Pierce Censorship is often used by governments to hide certain things from the public; things that are offensive. These can include (but are not limited to) being insulting to religion, being racist, or being too violent. Despite these reasons, however, censorship doesn’t need to be mandatory to protect the people.

Censorship is the assassination of ideas. It causes people to be ignorant which makes them not pay any attention to the world around them. Many people see what is happening right in front of them but choose to not direct their attention, not knowing if something terrible is going on. Censorship conceals all the things that would make people have their own voice. It prevents all of the ideas that are made from people to be heard.

Censorship has been adopted in many societies as well as the governments of our world. As the history of the world expands we see many countries try to censor what their citizens see. When the countries do this they are not assisting the country, they are leading it into a self-destruction. A good example of this would be America in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. This nation is destroyed in a futuristic war that only lasts a couple of minutes, if not seconds. Other fitting examples include the Nazi regime and the Soviet Union, both governments censoring their population in what they could read, write, and see. As we know both of these governments did not succeed and ultimately were obliterated and the countries were punished. Government censorship not only wounds the ability for people to grow and expand in their thought process, but it eventually causes the ultimate self-destruction of the nation.

A multitude of countries and organizations use censorship for various reasons. However something they all have in common is the one providing the censored material does not want the reader or viewer to know something, whether that be the true state of a country or the real history of a matter. Censorship is a constant tug-a-war between two sides for the truth over a subject. This form of restriction can be observed from the early 1900’s to today’s modern times, and can also be seen worldwide in countries that have little to nothing in common.

Censorship dates all the way back to 443 BC in ancient Rome with the Office of Censor. In that time this was an office of great repute, the Office of Censor was charged with the shaping of the character of the people. Thus it was considered to be an honorable task, since then the connotation of the word and such an office has changed greatly. Today censorship is the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc. and suppressing “unacceptable parts” based on whoever is defining “unacceptable.” Unacceptable has been considered to be a wide range of concepts from ideas to sexually explicit content. Historically in the USSR most leaders used censorship in every form as a means of suppressing whatever or whoever was perceived as a

Censorship occurs when information is forbidden; for example, in books, movies, newspapers, and the Internet. Books are banned when they contain objectionable language, sexual content, political content, and in the case of government censorship, knowledge. Some people argue that censorship is necessary to protect children from explicit language or sex scenes, and to preserve morals or religious values. Those against censorship argue that historical facts shouldn’t be censored, so that people can learn from history. Opponents also claim that censorship invalidates their intellectual freedom; which the United Nations proclaimed as a fundamental human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Finally, censorship decreases the quality

There are various reasons as to why censorship is used. They include: security purposes, prevent hate speech, to protect vulnerable communities and also to counter unethical religious and political views. Censorship is currently being used for both political and social purposes. Most of these reasons for censorship are not absolute because they hinder people’s freedom of expression and speech. This confirms my argument that censorship is bad in the modern world. Despite some aspects considering censorship to be good, there are several aspects that promote my argument that censorship is bad thus its advantageous nature.

Freedom of expression is a right given to fuel people’s imaginative minds that are occupied with different thoughts and opinions. Censorship is only an obstacle, preventing people from expressing their inner beliefs by replacing it with fake ones. Censorship actively prohibits and suppresses people’s opinions to speak up in society freely and openly. It restricts the common adult or child of any gender from being themselves and fighting for what they believe in. Censoring speech and expression only establish greater problems than the one attempting to be resolved that both prevent people from expressing themselves and cover the ears of those who are willing to listen.

Censorship is the suppression of free speech, but we may at times need to use censorship for

Censorship may be protection from inappropriate materials, but it also limits free speech. For the limitation of free speech, it is reasonable why people are emphatically against censorship. It is understood that there is a need to filter some of the materials released in today’s society, but too much is being done by people who have no right meddling with everyone’s rights. Civilization has always been plagued by a never ending battle being fought over what is deemed right and wrong. In today’s culture, censorship oppresses everything in the media. From movies and music to television and even news stories, most of the content viewed today has been filtered one way or another. Restrictions have been in place since early societies have been

Censorship takes many forms in our society today. First it takes the form of political correctness. The purpose