As governments across the globe enforce censorship, they threaten a certain death of culture and individualism. Certain establishments have been regulating forms of expression for centuries, and through time the general population's opinions on censorship has evolved and led into the modern day controversy surrounding the limitation of information. Currently, the most censored subjects throughout the world are those regarding religion, politics, and sex due to the significant array of opinions. Many justify this censorship by claiming the expression, whether it is through writing, speech, art, music, or an innumerable value of other forms, is obscene, pornographic, offensive, or harmful to those who may view it. Though censorship limits the …show more content…
Over the course of history, numerous religious groups have censored various forms of expression and information. By the second century the Christian Church acknowledged certain novels as, “...morally and doctrinally sound" (Calhoun), beginning to limit the people’s access to information. Later, as the Church lost power to the government, many rules that the religious establishments had created about what readings were morally sound were abolished, but without delay governments replaced them and began to censor sources of information and forms of expression themselves. (Calhoun) Multiple ancient and modern governments who censor or are known to censor often fear that their people will learn information that would turn them against authority figures or form new, conflicting opinions. Although certain more restricting governments are notoriously known for their censorship laws, such as North Korea and China, many nations across the globe are "Under Surveillance for Troubling Internet Censorship Practices" or for being"Enemies of the Internet" (“Countries That Practice Internet Censorship”) even when they are democratic or supposedly for their people, like the United States. The information regulated by governments shows the prevalence of control that governments seek over their people and the paranoia those governing often have of losing their position of