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Reasons for changing the examples
The intro as it stood was not very good. The examples given weren't very good (the prevention of official school prayer, for example, is not censorship) and one of them linked to a highly unencyclopedic article about "liberal friendship". I have replaced these with better examples of censorship, and a better introduction to what exactly it means. Also deleted the history section (which was only a single sentence and didn't warrant a whole section to itself) and incorporated it into the opening.[[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 07:49, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
The intro as it stood was not very good. The examples given weren't very good (the prevention of official school prayer, for example, is not censorship) and one of them linked to a highly unencyclopedic article about "liberal friendship". I have replaced these with better examples of censorship, and a better introduction to what exactly it means. Also deleted the history section (which was only a single sentence and didn't warrant a whole section to itself) and incorporated it into the opening.[[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 07:49, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
User:EdPoor, you reverted some of my last edits and restored some of the examples that I had replaced, without giving any reason on the talk page.
There are three examples in question: the removal of school prayer, the destruction of conservative newspapers on college campuses, and the ostracization of students for their pro-life or conservative views. I removed these for the following reasons:
1. Regarding school prayer, I am of the opinion, as are many others, that it does not constitute censorship. What is prevented under the establishment clause is official school-led prayer, not prayer ''per se''. If this is censorship, it is certainly not a particularly clear example of it, unlike the Google China situation, or the fictional examples from ''1984''. It is far better to give examples of things which are clearly, unambiguously, censorship, than it is to give as an example something which is hotly contested.
2. The destruction of conservative newspapers links to a news report of one such instance in Bucknell college, which is cited as being an act of vandalism by other students. Therefore it is not a particularly clear example of censorship. An article which seeks to give an overview of a topic should give the most "textbook" examples that it can.
3. Ostracization is not the same as censorship. A university which denies tenure to a conservative (for no other reason than their conservative views) is guilty of discrimination, not censorship. A liberal student who refuses to talk to a conservative student (again, for no other reason) is guilty of several things: foolishness, closed-mindedness, ignorance, etc, but not censorship.
What happened in South Africa when the government could ban its political opponents from being quoted in any media is censorship. The burning of books is censorship. The limits imposed upon journalists living in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall amounted to censorship. The blocking of human rights websites and references to the 1989 Tianamen square protests on Google China is censorship. These examples you gave are not nearly as definitive. To mention them ''in the opening sentences'', frankly, demeans the more serious examples.
If you disagree with me, I am happy to discuss our disagreement here. Until then, as per the reasons given here and in my previous post, I am reverting the page. [[User:Eoinc|Eoinc]] 10:12, 25 April 2008 (EDT)