Every country has suffered from some forms of censorships of media, literature, or the Internet. According to Oxford Dictionary, censorship is, “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” No matter how the information can be offensive or provocative for someone, it cannot be censored from the society. A democratic society is in possession of a right for freedom of speech, which includes seeing, reading, and exploring any kind of information they would like, and they should not be extended from this opportunity. One type of censorship that exists in our society is censorship of the media. People have been facing the problems with watching …show more content…
Religious groups, parents, and even government have banned books that contain content that are considered to be inappropriate for the school use. Books that are banned are recurrently removed from the libraries and bookstores. For example, Harper Lee’s classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” has faced numerous challenges since its release in 1960. Some parents in several states of America protested against the use of this book in schools, because the plot of the book consisted of rape scenes and racial inequality in the southern states of America. A few courts have agreed with the parents, and “To Kill a Mockingbird” was actually banned from schools for certain amount of time. People must be in possession of an opportunity to read and explore both sides of any opinions and conflicts. By taking away this opportunity, people will not be educated properly. Therefore, there will not be a properly educated …show more content…
Over the past years, the Internet has become a growing source of entertainment and information. As more people get used to the Internet, the amount of content grows rapidly. Therefore, there is a content that might be provocative or offensive for governments of some countries. For example, in the Republic of Kazakhstan, which is still a country with a democratic system of the government, citizens cannot access websites such as “Livejournal.com” and “Avaaz.org”. They have been banned for a public use by the government of the country. The first website, “Livejournal.com”, is a blog platform where anyone can sign-up and write articles in their personal blogs. The government did not give the exact reasons for blocking, but people tend to believe that it was because of the leader of the oppositional party of Kazakhstan, who wrote his thoughts about a current governmental structure in the country. The second website, “Avaaz.org”, is a platform where anyone can create a survey and people from all over the world can give their opinions about it. In this case, the government also did not give the exact reasoning of blocking. However, a week before the blocking, an unknown user created a survey, where he asked a question, “Should the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan leave his post before the elections?” The survey became truly popular in a week. More than 100,000