How important is censorship in todays world?

Question word: How

Keyword: Important, Todays World (globalisation, technology etc)
Topic word: Censorship

Stand: Censorship is important in todays world but it has its flaws, which result in sacrifices
being made, when censorship is put in place.

Thesis:
By the turn of the 21st Century, information transmission has been speeding up rapidly with the
advancements in Information Technology. This avenue for rapid communication has increased
the incidence of the need for censorship as provocative messages become easily virulent
online. Such inflammatory messages threaten not only social stability but also the basic right to
live and therefore, the very principles that form the fundamentals of freedom of expression. As
such, I believe that censorship is important in upholding peace and stability in a nation and her
people. However, I do acknowledge the fact that censorship can be abused by a nations
government and is less effective in the globalised world and sacrifices are made when
censorship is put in place.

Developmental paragraphs
For
-Censorship preserves the peace and stability in a nation by removing conflicting ideologies.
-The use of censorship to filter political ideologies has been widespread. Even the USA,
a forerunner of human rights and freedom of speech, has made use of censorship to
remove communist ideologies in the context of the Cold War.
-If censorship were absent, communist ideologies may have emerged from the
community and spread. This could possibly cause the polarisation of the state, dividing
the community. Thus, the state has a right to intervene and prevent civil unrest,
disruption and chaos within a nation through the use of censorship.
-In Singapores context, censorship is used to remove messages that promote terrorism
and racism, both of which jeopardize the security of the people.
-If censorship were not put in place, Jihadist sentiments may spread amongst the
community, which increases the frequency and amount of terrorist activity, posing an
even greater threat to society.
-If a governments failure to enforce censorship sacrifices the preservation of peace and
stability within a nation, it has failed in its role and duty of upholding security and justice,
which is a responsibility it has to its people.

-Censorship prevents the exposure of the young to inappropriate materials prematurely.

- Research on violent television and films, video games, and music revealed that media
violence has increased the prevalence of aggressive and violent behaviour amongst
youths.
 - Hence, censorship of inappropriate information such as gore and sexual references
serves to protect those of tender age, whose immature mentality leaves them vulnerable
to the unhealthy messages sent across the screen
- Also, censorship of Hate messages, such as the promotion of armed Jihad, reduces
the exposure to misleading, and incorrect ideas, that may have detrimental effects on the
minds of those who are yet to be prepared to form morally sound opinions of their own
- The beginning of the 21st century faced the emergence of a worldwide network of
numerous web sites that inspire, train, educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in
jihad against America and the West.
- With the exponential increase in online Jihad recruitment, there is an increasing need
for censorship to eradicate these extremist ideas so that young innocent minds would not
be polluted with hate and animosity towards another race or religion, and be instigated to
take up arms against civilians who happen to have a difference in ideology.

-Censorship is important to prevent confidential information from being leaked to the public
-Sometimes censorship is necessary to keep certain confidential information from being
stolen. For example, military censorship is the process of keeping military intelligence
and tactics confidential and away from the enemy.
-It is a common practice carried out by countries involved in wars. In wartime, explicit
censorship is carried out with the intention of preventing the release of information that
might be useful to an enemy.
-Typically it involves keeping times or locations secret, or delaying the release of
important information such as an operational objective, until it is of no possible use to
enemy forces.
-During World War I letters written by British soldiers would have to go through
censorship. This consisted of officers going through letters with a black marker and
crossing out anything which might compromise operational secrecy before the letter was
sent.
-Few people can argue against such actions as the release of tactical information can
have a dire consequence on the result of war, and thus the security of the country.

-The mass media is too powerful to remain uncontrolled

-With advancements in technology, the volume and the speed of the transmission of
information is greatly increased. The media has an even greater power to effect change
in a country.
-An incident that illustrates this is the London riots in August 2011. The impatience of
youths with the police officers in ignoring a familys demand for justice for the death of a
family member caused youths to organise and stage protests that eventually broke into
riots nationwide, causing economic loss and social instability.
 -The scale of the riots is caused by the fact that the youths used social media such as
Facebook and Blackberry Messenger to send messages to youths across the country to
gain support for the riots.
-Thus it can be seen that the media is used as a tool for coordinated action to be taken
from different locations that are long distances apart. This strengthens the medias grip
on the affairs and happenings of the world and reduces the amount of control that
governments and authorities have on such situations, leading to severe consequences,
such as social instability in the case of the London riots.
-Thus, in the case of the London riots, for the government and authorities to maintain
control over the situation and the people, the media has to be controlled through
censorship to remove the messages that has helped to spread the riots.
-Therefore, censorship is important to enforce control over a countrys citizens.

However, censorship does have its shortcomings despite its importance.

-Censorship is less effective in a technologically advanced and globalised world
-Nowadays, people can easily travel from country to country to discuss about ideas or
read materials unavailable in their own country
-People can also express their own suppressed opinions more easily such as Chinese
dissident Ai Weiwei, who exhibited pieces of works outside China
-The flow of information is increasingly more difficult to control because of developments
in technology such as mobile phones and social media. For example, governments may
make restricted access to certain websites online. However, this effect can be easily
bypassed through the use of foreign proxy servers, allowing these websites and their
information to be circulated.
-Hence censorship is less effective in a world where the volume and speed of the
transfer of information is greatly increased.

-Censorship often crosses the boundary of protection, leading to abuse by governments

-An example of such a country is North Korea. It is routinely at the bottom of the World
Press Freedom Index Rankings published by Reporters Without Borders. It invests huge
amounts of resources into propaganda.
-The North Korean government controls all forms of media and the government and its
deeds are often glorified and exaggerated in the news.
-The media often make false claims and launches strong rhetorics against the Western
World
-This aligns the peoples beliefs closer to the dictatorships ideologies. Hence the people
are manipulated to allow the self-interests of the officials in the government to be
fulfilled, resulting in corruption.
-Hence censorship does have its problems and can be abused to fulfil the self-interests
of those in power.
-Censorship deprives the majority of a wider spectrum of information
-Society benefits more without censorship in place. Without censorship to restrict and
remove ideas, a free media market would be responsive to the preferences individuals
might have.
-Such a marketplace of ideas, a concept analogous to the economic concept of a free
market, involves the competition of a wide range of ideas in free and transparent public
discourse. In this model, it is believed that the best idea arises out of the competition and
the model is a key aspect of any liberal democracy.
-If censorship were put in place, a large portion of the marketplace of ideas is removed,
depriving people of a wider range of ideas. With a lack of fresh ideas, society may
become ignorant and have an increasingly homogeneous viewpoint, stifling creativity, a
prized quality in the 21st century.
-Many a times, the route to educational attainment via unconventional material faces
insurmountable challenge due to variations in the criteria for censorship. Eg....

Conclusion
In conclusion, even though censorship has inherent flaws and sacrifices are made when
censorship is put in place, it is still important in preserving the peace, stability and security of a
country in todays world. To prevent the state from abusing censorship and minimise the
removal of ideas from the marketplace of ideas, I recommend that a panel of foreign arbitrators
should be set up that decides what should or should not be censored so as to maximise the
benefits gained by the people. In addition, opposition parties can be involved in the decision-
making process to serve as a check and balance for the government. This way, the credibility of
the censorship board is greatly increased and censorship can be more widely accepted.