Positive Sides of Cutting Out Censorship

Censorship aims to protect children or other venerable people by blocking content deemed inappropriate. This however means that the public can only be exposed to things the government allows them to view.

In many cases censorship is a positive thing. In this day and age it cannot be denied that children are growing up far too quickly. Because young people are using the internet everyday they are often exposed to graphical images, indecent photos, gambling and many other types of content that are targeted at people many years their senior provides a form of filtering which to a degree shields these people from the media they do not wish to see. A positive form of censorship would be the 9 o’clock watershed. The watershed aims to protect children from harmful material on Television and the radio. The watershed contains a set of ruled to which all British broadcasters must comply to. Under the conditions it states that no content deemed unsuitable for children can be broadcasted between 5:30 AM and 9:00 PM.

Another point to consider about censorship is how it may have helped us in the past. During both world wars media was heavily censored and although it could be argued that the public had the right to know what was going on overseas, if the newspapers reported on every battle the allies lost or the amount of casualties Britain was suffering then the people would become dissolusioned with the war and it is believed that this could have led to defeat. The public didn’t necessarily lie about what was happening would focus more on the triumphs of the allies and not the defeats.

During wartime however, countries have been known to flat out lie about their situation within the war. In WW1 Germany the Kaiser made sure the newspapers informed the public that Germany was on the verge of winning the war and that a surrender off the allies was imminent. So when November 1918 came and the Kaiser abdicated. The German population was left feeling cheated and confused and this led to many Germany refusing to accept their surrender.

Like many thing in this day and age censorship is a positive thing when used in the correct manner. If a country does not have any form of censorship then it could lead to the innocence of childhood suffering and the more extreme Newspapers expressing their views and contaminating the truth. On the other hand if media is to highly censored then it will affect things such as freedom of speech and many other human rights.

To conclude I will say that censorship is like many things at a moderate level it is good but when taken to the extremes it needs to be stopped or started.