Censorship In America Essay

Censorship is something that has been used throughout time by political figures and the government in order to “protect” the people, whether it be by their will or not. In America, censorship is defined as “the act of altering, adjusting, editing, or banning of any or all media resulting from the presumption that its content is perceived to be objectionable, incendiary, illicit, or immoral by the Federal Government of the United States” (What You Didn’t Know About Censorship in America). However, for other countries, censorship can be defined as something else entirely. Take radical countries such as North Korea or China for example. These countries do not censor material based upon the welfare of the people, but rather on the basis to not

In the research article, “Inferring Mechanics of Web Censorship Around the World” by John-Paul Verkamp and Minaxi Gupta, these two authors researched on the different methods and devices that countries around the world, including China, have used in order to censor internet sources, and social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. As Verkamp and Gupta say, “Internet censorship is a growing concern around the world, affecting a large portion of the world’s population. Modes of censorship vary widely, ranging from complete disconnection, to selective censorship of Web pages, to censorship of search engines and online social networks” (1). By using test subjects in different countries, Verkamp and Gupta have made interesting findings about how censorship varies across the globe. For example, they have found out that “Malaysia, Russia and Turkey censor at the DNS while other countries do so at routers or other network hardware” whereas other countries censor at both the DNS and router, such as Korea (1). Not only that, but “other countries leave users wondering why their attempt to fetch a web page was unsuccessful” which shows that some governments around the globe do not want their citizens to know that censorship is an ongoing