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Abdulaziz Almurad Professor Sandra Jackson English 113B

Draft 3 23 September 2014

The Fight Against Censorship

Censorship is a terminology used to refer to the act of suppressing the spread of ideas or information by a government in a state or the act of criticizing  or judging some ideas as well as information that would work out to be a disadvantage to the concerned party if allowed to be spreaded freely (Cohen, 4-8). These ideas or information may be used by enemies to their advantage or even may be spreading immoral teachings within the society. In its own right, this practice is advisable to be applied to control the spread of propaganda and negative presentation of either part or the whole of the society, which can in turn cause misunderstanding between the people involved. However, the practice comes along with numerous challenges, which makes it not applicable within a society.

The practice of censorship has numerous faults because of the input efforts as well as the recognition from the public and the concerned parties. Firstly, it is expensive to carry out, like what's going on in Australia since 2009. They had so much man power and money put into censoring that the economics of the country played a big role in it by 42 billion AUD to make sure it continues and the amount of billions has increased every year ( Leaver Tammar).

Secondly, it denies the public their right to get the basic information and speech, by that the people can't express or write about the government and the problems people have from the government and the way of their lives. They are holded back by the government to stop any revelation against the government and rulers of the country.

Thirdly, it may face resentment from the affected parties. Which means that the people of the country may be against the government because they are denied their rights and not given the truth of what's going on in their government and the world.

Lastly "the public may view it as a move by the authorities to try covering loopholes in their administration" (Sweeney, 12-13), by that the government is covering up faults and negative things about its personal and rulers. And from this point of view, affecting the entire process of censorship which requires a large number of trained personnel, who would work to ensure that the directive is followed. These people whom are government personal trained and facilitated financially to enable them to be on the lookout at all times ensuring that the censored information or ideas are not spread.

On top of that, if the directive was enacted in attempts to hide information from an enemy, the same information will not reach the other people and the masses will be uninformed on the matters affecting them. Moreover, the people whose ideas are censored together with their supporters may lead a rebellion against the same and in the process cause confusion or even damages within the society if the authorities confront them. Lastly, such a move may come at a time when the authorities have faced some challenges in their administrative roles and the people may view the directive which is to hide information as a plan aimed at turning away the attention of the people far from the mistakes they had done.

However, "censorship is advantageous in the event that the ideas or information being spread hurts part of or all the people living within a society. People may be hurt if the messages contained in some news or pictures are aimed at presenting some religious or political views as superior to others" (Nanda & Richard, 278). Although people have the freedom of speech and expression, information that can cause animosity in society should be controlled to prevent chances of the degraded people fighting back to safeguard their lost pride. If at any time offensive ideas and information are left to be spread freely within the society, obvious there would come a time when the people in the society will live like enemies of one another and in the end affect the development of the entire state negatively. To avoid this, censorship can be carried out to all the ideas and information that can cause hatred between different social or political groupings. This will go a long way in preventing possible losses that may arise from the confrontations of the different groups.

Overall, censorship can be judged to be bad because its application is subject to the prevailing situation because it can cause problems or help settle problems whenever it is applied. The most important thing to consider when applying it is the overall effect it will have on the society.

Work Cited

Cohen, Mark. Censorship in Canadian Literature. Montreal .McGill-Queen's Univ. Press, 2001. Print.

Leaver, Tammar. The Economic Cost of Internet Censorship in Australia. inquisitr.com. 2009. Web.

Nanda, Serena, and Richard L. Warms. Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

Sweeney, Michael S. Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War Ii. Chapel Hill .Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2001. Print.