Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to a particular organization as determined by a censor. In the present day United States, several issues of ethics surrounding censorship have been raised, including the censorship of pornography.
Contents
Types of Censorship
Replacement
This type of censorship occurs when a part of an work is edited to remove the controversial expression.
- Profanity on network TV is replaced with an alternative audio clip or silence.
- Nudity is blurred.
Removal
This type of censorship occurs when the work in question is removed from public access.
- A book is a banned in a country.
- A scene of a movie is cut in the televised version.
Primary Motivation for Censorship
"The motivation for censorship is often disapproval of the content or worry about its effects on "public morality" (Censorship 2008 pp. 577).
Other motivations for censorship, however, may include the moral disapproval of what individuals may do with the information gained from accessing an expression. For example, information on bomb making is, in itself, non threatening, however, what individuals may choose to do with this information can be very threatening.
Inherently Harmful Access
"This view holds that accessing some content is simply inherently bad" (Censorship 2008 pp. 580).
See Kay Mathiesen.
Censorship and Pornography
See Censorship and Pornography.
Instrumentally Harmful Access
Content is censored for the concern that harm to another may be a consequence to unrestricted access to certain information.
See Kay Mathiesen.
See Also
References
- Wikipedia - Censorship
- "Censorship and Access to Expression" The Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics, 2008. https://ctools.umich.edu/access/content/attachment/aaaaaee7-1694-481e-95b6-090bdec54ec2/Assignments/227d63b0-669c-4a3e-9399-23a8f97ad737/MediaWiki%20Writing%20Assignment.pdf
