Censorship
From Conservapedia
Censorship is the suppression of statements or information for ideological reasons. Current examples include:
- the banning of prayer in the classroom[1]
- the rejection of pro-life advertisements[2]
- the destruction of conservative newspapers on college campuses.[3]
- the banning of mention of intelligent design in school.[4]
- the burning of "Occult" books, such as the Harry Potter novels.[5]
Censorship can also take the form of ostracizing students for expressing pro-life or other conservative views.[6] Censorship is sometimes based on a misuse of copyright, as in the unsuccessful attempt to censor the movie Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed about intelligent design.[7]
Political censorship involves a government preventing information from reaching its citizens. Perhaps the most well-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.
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The First Amendment and censorship in the U. S.
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; however, these standards tend to fluctuate depending on time and place. 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 the case in conservative Muslim countries.
Quotes
- "All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. George Bernard Shaw[8]
References
- ↑ See, e.g., classroom prayer.
- ↑ See, e.g., "Canadian City Backpedals on Decision to Censor Pro-life Bus-shelter Ads." [1]
- ↑ http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19383118&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8
- ↑ See, e.g., Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed.
- ↑ http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/book-burnings-potter-tech-media_cz_ds_books06_1201burn.html
- ↑ See, e.g., liberals and friendship.
- ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7432860.stm
- ↑ "The Author's Apology, preface to "Mrs. Warren's Profession".
