Censorship is a big world problem that doesn’t seem to get addressed often. Censorship can take many forms. In some occasions, information is blocked for being to obscene or because governments don’t like the information that is provided. In some cases, it makes sense to block information because it may be dangerous to not do so; this includes government information that is top secret. Many problems arise from censoring information and sometimes there is no clear line between what is ethical and what is legal, so we hope that they are aligned for the most part. Unfortunately, the legal aspect of a censorship doesn’t always align with what is ethical.
There are two main types of media censorship. The first one is direct and ultimately results in people being denied specific information. The second one is indirect is a combination of actions that results in news outlets not being able to provide the information that is being censored. This doesn't necessarily mean that a news outlet purposely did not report on a topic; it could be related to things such as the news outlet losing its funding because they decided to not censor certain information. Just as the force driving the censorship of information, technology can play a big role on what information gets censored. In general, depriving people of useful information is unethical because that information may serve a useful purpose in their lives. Censorship is more complicated than simply being understood as bad or good. Due to this, people may strongly agree or disagree in whether certain aspects of censorship are good or bad. From a consequentialist perspective, censorship can be seen as good. If releasing documents to the public results in panic, then it is in the best interest of everyone that the government does not release those documents. On the other hand, a person arguing with a kantian perspective would disagree because the same rules can’t be applied to all the people. With a Kantian perspective, it would not be ethical to censor some people while not others because this would then have results that potentially contradicted themselves. Example of governments that use censorship are France and Germany. In France and Germany, websites that deny the fact that the holocaust occurred are blocked. The holocaust is a sensitive topic, so I don’t believe that the French and German governments are doing anything wrong. The websites that say the holocaust didn’t occur are obviously lying and also hurting the people who experienced the holocaust or had family members who did. In this situation, the holocaust is a dark part of history and denying it is disrespecting every person that went through it. Censoring fraudulent websites would result in people being more at peace and it would remove all the ignorant people. There are many cases where censorship actually benefits people, but it becomes a problem when the government starts taking advantage of people's insecurities in order to push their own agendas. I hope this doesn’t get censored.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
|