Censorship in Media: Has it Gone Too Far?

Censorship in the media can be a violation of basic human rights.. Governments will use censorship to hide information from their citizens, which in effect takes away the right to knowledge. It can also be not so harmful, but still completely unnecessary, like re-releasing a tv show but with any blood removed to meet modern television standards. Sometimes it is as simple as nudity or coarse language being removed from a TV show, but some governments have taken censorship too far and not enough people are aware of it.

Here is an example of how governments are censoring the media:    

The internet authorities are portrayed as this huge looming figure who has blindfolded the person trying to search for “Tiananmen Square Censorship”. The ‘internet’ is ignoring that search and is requesting other things instead. In other countries, it is very easy to research Tiananmen Square, which makes it clear that it is the Chinese Government who has made an effort to cover up anything to do with it. This is a problem because they are using censorship to hide atrocities that they committed, and are leaving the people of China, who have a right to know what their government is doing, and has done, completely blind to a terrible thing. If this continues, the people of China will continue to blindly support a corrupt government. The government has censored other things they don’t think people should be aware of. Some keywords that have supposedly been blacklisted are:

Democracy, Human Rights, Dictatorship, Oppression, and many other words that have to do with sensitive political topics. The issue is also present in other countries, and people need to be made aware of it.

The governments in North America and Europe are also using censorship to control the masses, but are doing so in a different way. The internet, which is the most common source of information in the modern world, is often full of gossip and ‘celebrity news’, as shown on the sleeves of the people who are doing the censoring in the image. This is the kind of thing that is given to people to distract them from actual issues within their own country and around the world, just as a child is distracted by candy to avert their attention from something their parents don’t want them seeing. The image shows this very well, and shows the effects of it. The hands are being placed over the person’s eyes to stop them from seeing what is happening in front of them, and they are instead being shown things like “consume”, and “scandal”. Then, there is a third hand over their mouth, which may be meant to show that what is shown in the media affects what a person says and does, which is just another way the government controls people.

Some governments and powerful organizations are directly censoring what people in their country have to say. In this image, the hand is holding a pencil. To me, this represents that the person who this hand belongs to is an artist or writer, and the chain is a symbol of the restrictions on what they can express in their art. For example, it is not uncommon for foreign journalists to be killed in other countries simply for getting a showing a picture or article that reveals what conditions in the area are really like. This has happened in places like Syria, Iraq, Somalia, and other places where there are issues either with politics, or how the citizens are being treated. People who are in power in these places are concerned with how the rest of the world sees them, and so when someone tries to show what things are really like, they are either arrested or killed. This kind of censorship happens on less serious levels as well, but it can still be harmful. Just like China censoring what can be seen on the internet, some organizations are censoring what kind of articles can be published online or in newspapers. an example in history of this kind of censorship could be during World War II. Many satirical comics were published in this time that mocked Adolf Hitler. This infuriated Hitler to the point that some cartoonists that were making these what put on Gestapo hit lists. A current example might be North Korea. Students have been expelled from schools for writing essays that criticise the government, freedom of speech is virtually non-existent, and media has strict restrictions on what they are allowed to say regarding politics. This type of censorship is, in my opinion, one of the worst, because instead of metaphorically blindfolding people, it is as if they are wearing a shock collar that zaps them any time they try to express their own opinions.

Another example of censorship, although much less harmful, is television censorship. Understandably, some parents do not want their children to be exposed to nudity or swearing, so networks censor things like this. But sometimes they go too far, to the point where it is completely unnecessary. The image on the right compares a popular anime, "Dragon Ball Z" with it's remastered version "Dragon Ball Z Kai". In this image, the blood has been removed from the original scene and in the re-release, is made to appear as dirt. In other scenes, blood was changed to appear green, purple, or was removed completely without anything in its place. While I think that most television censorship is unnecessary, I can respect the reasoning behind it. But this is utterly ridiculous. In a show that focuses on a hero saving the universe from villains of immeasurable power, there is going to be blood. But even then, it is cartoon blood. It's completely animated. If a cartoon rendering of something that wouldn't be censored on television if it were real is too much for someone to handle, the better solution is for them to not watch the show, because there are definitely worse things shown. While this censorship may not be directly harmful, it is an unnecessary measure taken to hide things that don't need to be hidden, which I believe to be one of the reasons that people think the world to be such a terrifying place. In this way, it is harmful. It allows people to be unprepared for anything that might be even a little bit difficult for them to look at, and makes a weak society that is unable to deal with anything bad.

Works Cited

Censorship of blood in Dragonball Z. Stack Exchange. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Jan. 2016. <http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/3010/will-i-miss-anything-by-watching-dragon-ball-z-kai-instead-of-the-other-series>.

“Fear Drives a Bid for Censorship.” The Age. Fairfax Media, n.d. Web. 5 Jan. 2016. <http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/fear-drives-censorship/2007/05/31/1180205422224.html?page=fullpage>.

“Government Spying Causing Self Censorship.” Caravan to Midnight. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2015. <http://caravantomidnight.com/government-spying-causing-self-censorship-privacy-fears-among-writers-new-york-times/>.

“Internet Censorship in China.” Mthyoloke. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Jan. 2016. <https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~khour22h/classweb/censorship/>.