The Pros And Cons Of Censorship

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With the rapid advances of technology, freedom of speech related issues have encountered new dilemmas. While the 1st Amendment protects us from government intervention, the same protection does not apply to private businesses. Although such protections and censorship dilemmas are not specific to this new wave of technology, as free speech dilemmas have been long debated in and out of the court systems, technology adds a potentially advanced threat to such issues. As more and more individuals become enamored by the world of information at their fingertips, the flow of information is faster than ever. Ideally, this phenomenon should be a positive one, as more information should lead to a better educated society. However, in real world application, the producers of the information, or …show more content…

As previously mentioned, the 1st Amendment protects us from government intervention, however, does not protect us from private corporations. The framework of such protections, or in the case of large corporations, a lack of protection, could prove to be worrisome, as without a set of regulations regarding freedom of speech, corporations must rely on their own ethical standards to provide society with freedom of censorship. However, what happens when the government or corporations attempt to maneuver around the current laws of freedom of speech? While governments throughout the world have attempted to justify censorship in various ways, should we be afraid of such actions as they could be the first steps to rationalize a society in which the government controls the flow of information? In this essay, I hope to explore the level of concern we, the citizens of the United States should feel regarding freedom of speech, as corporations lack regulations and governments attempt to bypass such regulations under the justifications of safety. To do so, I will examine articles which discuss issues regarding freedom of speech, as well as the book A Gift of Fire, by Sara Baase and Timothy