Censoring: With or Against? Arguments needed

Generally im against cencorship.
It stifles honest debate thats the cornerstone of a healthy democratic society.

On the other hand, limits must be placed to prevent idiots and zealots pushing their particular brand of bigotry/hatred/lies.

As with all things in life, its a delicate balancing act.

<b>Plaid will NEVER go out of style! </b>

It's one of those areas where in a perfect world it shouldn't be needed, but the idiocy of some people warrants it.

It's sort of like how in a perfect world we wouldn't need a justice system or police forces, but human nature requires that we have them to keep the peace. We have to limit their power or else it can be almost as bad as if there was none.

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

I guess the only true means of good censorship is to allow absolutely free access to all sources of information for everyone. Education and the ability to decide from having all of the available information have a positive effect on people's subsequent actions and attitudes. It's censorship on a personal level really.

Views on truth and lie, right and wrong, and obscene and educational will definitely vary from person to person, so why choose one person's drawing of a line over anothers?

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

hmm point.
hi fredi! Hope you havnt been too bothered by a little Hamster

Allthough when i was refering to "bigotry/hatred/lies" i was alluding to very clear cut examples.
i.e. Hitler was nice to Jews, Pol Pot was a nice guy with some great ideas etc.

Regarding investigative journalism, i think thats more of a problem with american media especially. Fortunately here in australia Journalists dont appear to be too afraid of questioning the official line... yet.

Another interesting thing, when i lived in Canada for a year or so i gave up watching any american sourced news. It was highly Americentric to the exclusing of any outside content, unless there was some part of the outside world that somehow involved US citizens or intrests. The BBC world news was what news should be. An interesting aspect of the worlds most powerful nation's news sources.


<b>Plaid will NEVER go out of style! </b>

Not everybody is educated enough to make up their own opinion (even if this someone actually chooses to read/see all sides to uncover the thruth). But then again, I believe everybody has a right to his own falsebelieve, too (which actually is a goal of censorship as well, isn't it?)

Exactly. I believe the intensions of censorship (either bad like denying free speech, or good like protecting people) don't matter. Once you allow others to censor what you receive no matter what it is, you gave up your freedom.

Once you gave up that freedom, it will be impossible for you to distinguish between what once was bad censorship and what once was good censorship. There will be someone who will abuse the what once was the good censorship and he'll try to manipulate and force his believes on you. By then you lost the freedom and the possibility to make up your own opinion.

The scary fact is, however, that todays manipulation of the masses doesn't need censorship anymore...

Fredi
Tom's Hardware Guide

There is an interesting interactive display at the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Basically it goes a little something like this: You sit down with two buttons in front of you and a huge screen that shows both sides of a particular issue from two different points of view. The first view being that freedom of speech is the most important, and the second being that protection against discrimination is the most important. At the end of the short clip you vote and find out how the other people voted there compared to you and as a group.

I sat there for a bit over an hour and watched how people voted. The only situation in which freedom of speech "won", was with respect to the internet. Protection against discrimination was more important to everybody, including myself. They covered a lot of issues and I was always in favor of people being protected from discrimination.

Kind of shocked me and my brother.

Would you approve of someone coming to your son's funeral after he was murdered and yelling out derogatory and offensive chants?

Would you approve of people going to abortion clinics and posting your picture on an anti-abortion website as you are entering or leaving the building?

Should sports athletes be subject to "fans" yelling out racist slurs, waving racist signs, and being very persistant about it?

The exhibit was an interesting approach to the debate.



Now, as far as media is concerened, I'm very very for freedom of speech (I think). The way things are right now, even though we think we have access to lots of information, we really don't. Our media, that being western media, is very very biased and filled with propoghanda. Being that I can only fairly access those forms that I can actually read and understand I can only really speak on behalf of English and Swedish. Both are very one sided. Both do not tell everything, only what they want us to hear. I have a very hard time with American media since it comes from the point of view that America rarely makes mistakes, and I have a hard time with Swedish media since it comes from the point of view that America is the anti-christ.

Take the Iraq situation for example. In the USA we claim that we have to go to Iraq and kick some tail because otherwise Saddaam will kill everyone. Reality check: We don't want him having the weapons to defend the second largest oil reserve in the world. Why not just say it? Yes, we're afraid he'll use it on since he hates us, but we need to protect our way of life and the oil that fuels it. I doubt they'll say that in the paper though.

Take the Israel-Palistinian situation. In Sweden (and from what I saw, most of Europe) they only speak from a very pro-palestinian point of view. Ask most swedes and they're all for suicide bombers. Without even getting into details, I can say that of all the Palestinians and Israeli's I've met, none of them agree with the European point of view. They share more than they disagree on, but you wouldn't know it from what we see on the news. The racist tendancies linger deep in Europe and both sides fear any help from them since racism is not what they need more of. From Yugoslavia, to the Kurds, Basques, and Irish....Europe is not a shining example and the fact that they pick one side so strongly over the other scares a lot of Middle Easterners. Read a swedish article on the subject and it gives very little "fact" but mostly "opinion". That's freedom of speech for you. So instead of news in the paper you get a lot of editorials. It's spawning hate towards one side rather than fixing anything. So, either you limit the amount of bashing or you introduce more sources of information. I haven't met enough people in my life that read multiple sources, and make decisions based on both sides, to feel comfortable saying it's ok to have all the papers in an entire country be slanted.

I could go no forever....

After I came home from my trip I realized how much America was hated. It's gotten a lot worse over the last couple of years. America is by no stretch of the imagination a perfect nation, but I was very surprised to see how Europeans were quick to quote the paper and how little they really knew about America. Freedom of speech has made them one sided, non-negotiable, and ignorant. The same thing we're accused of. Hypocracy at it's best.

Yes, I'm going off on a tangent, but the point I'm trying to make is that freedom of speech is really not something that I feel exists the way it should. Freedom of speech means that anybody can say anything, but if you're not saying the truth, who needs it? Freedom of speech just says "you can lie, they can lie, you can offend and deceive". Whoever has the most money, or the most power decides what is true.

The truth is censored out everyday. Do we really need more censoring? It's a tough call and it's bad enough as it is. Too many people with too many agendas.

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I met far too many people that were for suicide bombers. It was scary.

<font color=red>I'd like to dedicate this post to all my friends, family, and fans. Without them this post would never have been possible. Thank you!</font color=red>

Hey guys, I'd like to thank you all for the arguments.
Especially Dhlucke, since it provided an even more GLOBAL view on censorship and it most definitly will help my arguments be well supported and heavy.
At my friend's house today I asked him for his thoughts, which were generally similar, that the truth is kept away from us.

It is true indeed.
But I realized that censoring has so many meanings. At first I only knew that it meant to censor bad content, simply. But now I realize it has more psychological and political aspects which change a bit what it means if you had looked at it from a say "[peep]" or "[censored]" POV.

From my personal views, I beleive that the content should be respected, however I think we should, as girlnamedlou said, ADVISE. The user discretion is important, but so as the adviseable content. If porno websites had this warning, that perhaps the government created a law to be used for that, it'd help a lot, because the user is advised and has discretion on whether he will or not go there. NO censoring is done, the author has his content published, and the users choose.
What I believe however is to try and keep malicious content that to us is normal, but not to children. I feel that profanities are more powerful with children than when they attain an adult level mind. I still think they should not be exposed to such language, or be taught such. Same with sexual content. However I beleive parental education should play a huge role here in order to reduce censoring.
I hope you see where I am trying to go. Society has its own norms about this, where WE feel the content should be limited to the viewers maturity. Children are innocent and filled with receptive minds, anything can be thrown. I know I'd teach my child what NOT to say or ACT which can be bad. The kid'll know later on what this will serve him.

Though on a more personal note, I don't think porno should even be allowed, rather erotica should. Porn degrades the woman and man, it is nothing but disgusting acts, degrading at best. Erotica, while exploiting and showing the body, is respected. I saw on FOX TV in early 2002, a Playboy competition. After that show, I had tremendous respect for that magazine and the women who go there for shots. It did not degrade them, it was an art. Erotic content is respected by me, but pornography IMO is nothing but degrading content, and to me I'd censor that.
But that's on a personal note.

Thanks again all, your arguments are very valued, I wrote and finished the prep paper.

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Fox is the propoghanda channel of them all. My two cents.

Solve the porn issue by simply introducing and enforcing a .xxx extension. Filter and block at your leasure.

Maybe a .adv extension for advertisement and/or spam.

Enforce it globally.

Nonetheless, censorship and freedom of speech really aren't that big of a deal if we're just talking about porn and lyrics. It's the religious, political, and economic censorship that bothers me.

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No, I was just saying that those are small issues compared to the others. The real issue with censorship is not lyrics and porn, it's censoring and manipulating the truth.

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