Censorship is sometimes justified

[AZKAFATIMA]

OUTLINE
Introduction; what is censorship?
The right to freedom of thought and expression is protected by laws and constitutions
The freedom to read is essential to the democratic way of life.
Why censorship is necessary
-to avoid brutal acts and violence on the hands of government
-to protect the rights of illetrate massess
-to maintain peace and harmony in the society
Reforms for making censor acts more acceptable
-protection of civil rights
-necessity of truth
-not to use in education
CONCLUSION; pros and cons but it is our responsiblity.



Censorship is all about deciding on what people can see and deciding on what people can view within the media. Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication, which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive or inconvenient as determined by the government, media outlet or controlling body. It clocks out content which mainly is harmful to people and it aims to protect children and vulnerable people by block and removing content from media to limit and restrict what they can see. The government can retain people from seeing content in the media by removing it and only letting the public see what the government want them to see. Censorship can happen on a massive level like that or on a more local level where religious school remove the big bang from the school curriculum so the children don’t have different beliefs on how the world started. Censorship has lots of different areas from black inappropriate content to removing content so people only know one way or limits their opinions on something. Censorship can be editing parts from television/TV show out, prevention of advertising, promote/restrict political/religious views, prevent slender and libel. Restrict information from people.


The right on freedom of thought and expression is guaranteed by laws and constitutions of virtually all states. However, sometimes facts of censorship confirm that legal guarantees do not always backed by a genuine awareness of the importance of freedom of speech. Nowadays, the right to freely express own beliefs is regarded as one of the strongest pillars of modern democracy. Social harmony and progress does not override the existence of a rather large sphere of private life, whose boundaries can be violated neither by the state nor by any other authority for philosophers who hold an optimistic view on human nature and believe in the possibility of harmonization of human interests.

The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.

Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.

Censoring violent acts are compulsory. It is important that a community protects itself from violence as it can have a negative influence on people and disrupt the peace by affecting the mental and social health of people. Violent scenes can often increase peoples’ brutal instincts. People can become arrogant, mean, boring, rude, and aggressive due to violence. Many scientists stated that because of watching too much violence, the frontal lobes of their brain which deals with emotion, self-control, memory, etc remains undeveloped. It is said that 1998 – 2002, was the year when most of the movies were launched. Out of those movies approximately more than 98 movies were action movies (VIOLENCE) and came under the super hit category such as Anaconda, Jurassic park (2), Godzilla etc. These movies were obviously watched by most of the population in the world as they were super hit and popular, therefore majority of the people who watched these movie were affected by the violent acts which lead to the failure in the normal development of their lobes in the brain. Basically, it had become an issue. In order to try and cope up with the issue, the government came up with a law that people only 21 years and above will be allowed to watch movies which have violent content. It is mandatory now for every film to obtain the censor certificate from the Censor board which is present in every country. The censor board which consists of experts decides which parts of the film should be censored and which film is suitable for a particular group of viewers.

Another reason why it is important to censor violent acts is that in the third world countries majority of the population is uneducated. When these illiterate and semi-illiterate humans watch these movies, they are unable to understand and analyze the situation in the movie. It has been observed that if the movie contains criminal acts like murder, kidnapping etc, these people take ideas from the movie and do it in reality may- be to earn money in their otherwise miserable lives. According to a survey, the city of Delhi in India was reported to have a very high crime rate in which the murder of the employer by young servants was the most predominant among others. The reason for this was due that the young servants learned the tricks from the movies which prompted them to try out these violent acts against their employers. Most of the young children convicted under Juvenile crime act did confess that they learned all these crimes from the movies and films. But if we censor these kinds of scenes then it will contribute to peace and harmony in the society.

Censorship is extremely necessary in keeping the peace and harmony of a country. In the present turbulent times, religion does give peace of mind to an individual however if religion is used to hurt the sentiments of the people who believe in certain ideology, then censorship should be used to protect the people from getting hurt. In 1998, after the demolition of a sacred mosque in India, there were riots between the Muslims and the Hindus in which many people lost their lives. The print media decided not to publish photographs viewing the violent acts and stop writing about stuff which will further flare up the sentiments. Similarly the television media didn’t broadcast the video which contained the violent scene because the media thought the people who were watching this event on television might choose a side and start hitting their opponents (enemies).
Some people might argue that every individual has fundamental right for correct information and by censoring the contents of the news we are distorting the facts. In some cases it does happen like that, however I feel that if by using censorship one can save a few lives then it is totally justified. Few years back the Government of Denmark refused to ban the carton strip making fun of the Prophet Mohammad. The consequences are still being felt where the entire Muslim world felt hurt and protested often violently against the Danish government. In many Muslim countries, people have stopped using Danish products as a mark of protest. A desperate yet temporary action would have saved the situation.



While writing books, the authors should keep in mind to avoid using language or content that can hurt any section of society. Many books and magazine have been banned or burned in several countries because they have contents that can hurt and put the lives of certain individuals in danger. E.g. The book “Satanic Verses” written by Salman Rushdie was banned in several parts of the world because it had insulting references to the Prophet Muhammad which hurt the sentiments of the Muslim people.

Censorship is also necessary to protect the individual’s private lives. We all know how Princess Diana was always chased by the media people and her private life as well as her public life was written about. Most of the Hollywood stars and other celebrities often become victim of this also. Censorship is often used to protect their private lives and their identities.

Censorship is necessary because it acts like a shield and conceal factors which are inappropriate such as swearing. Swearing is inappropriate. Swearing is offensive and it can insult people and their personality. Ages below 18 should be restricted to use these swear words. Infact, people who are under 18 years old shouldn’t be introduced to these swear words. Many adults take swearing casually. Some adults strictly warn their children and prohibited their children to swear to swear but curiosity overcomes them and they swear. Some experts say that swearing is an addiction especially if you start swearing at a young age. If swearwords are censored then people won’t even under stand swear words. Additional to that, the people won’t swear and this will increase the reputation of the community. So don’t Risk your tongue by swearing just the way you risk heart and lungs by smoking.
Another circumstance where I don’t agree that censorship can be used is within the education. Within this scenario religious schools will not allow the children to know the story of the big bang and how the earth started scientifically. They will only teach the bible way. I think concerning the education this wrong because children should be taught both ways and be lead to make their own decision on what they believe in. Using censorship to hide theories from children in wrong in this aspect and it should not be done.

The world we live in now the Internet is used everyday by billions of people. The Internet can be very dodgy as it contains material that lots people do not want to come into contact with such as porn, gambling, violence, indecent images and videos etc… because of this the internet should have censorship to protect people from the harmful content that it contains. Blocks should be put on porn sites and other nasty sites that contain content which is indecent. This platform of media is the most dangerous and therefore should contain censorship to stop the harmful content reaching people and reaching children who are just browsing the net. Internet censorship in China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. In accordance with these laws, the government of China has made more than sixty Internet regulations to put the Internet censorship in action. The Internet control in China has been seen as the most extensive and advanced then any other countries in the world. The government don’t just block access to websites but monitor the web use of individuals. In my opinion I think this is a good idea that the government monitor the Internet in a strict way because in the UK the Internet does get monitored as strictly as China.

Censorship is necessary however one should assess the situation and decide how much, where and why. I strongly feel that if by censoring certain acts, one can save some lives and maintain general peace and harmony in the society then it is worth the effort. Even though censorship is restricting freedom in a way it’s making world a safer place to live in.


CRITICISM HIGHLY APPRECIATED

[saira aadil]

Excellent effort... especially the way, differnt evnts hv been qouted thts really impresv n makee the reader in a stream of flow

[Ghaffar khan]

Please can any senior guide me that whether one can go against instead of infavour of topic , i.e., in above mentioned essay ,, CENSORSIP IS JUSTIFIED ,, can we write against that instead of infavor .