censorship (in movies, in school, video games, etc)

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The impacts of censoring information
Censorship is the act of suppressing ideas, words or images so as to control the information or data that people can access. Private parties or the government can participate in promoting censoring for their benefit or as a way of protecting the community, religion or even a state from blasphemy, treason or explicit content. Censorship has been there for a long time, and it can be traced to as early as 300 Ad where a censorship law was passed in China. Blocking the ideas of people is viewed as a way of controlling the political and moral life of the society. Most governments use censorship as a way of preventing any evil influence from reaching the people in society`. Censorship has both active and negative impacts on the people. Does censorship protect the society from any adverse influence of the information it has access? Censorship has positive effects, and the society needs to have a limit of the information it has access.
In the society we are living in, every individual has freedom of expression and a right to obtain any information as long as it does not interfere with other people. It is a digital era; every individual can gain access to the internet for any content. Morality has been on the decline among youths, and this can be attributed to the accessibility of so much information such as pornography, obscene language, murder and even drugs. The young generation needs to be protected from all kinds of explicit content or even any information that would lure them to drugs or engaging in unprotected sex that exposes them to unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

The future generations need to be protected by censoring the information they have access to, and they need to be educated on proper moral standards. Protecting young people from social vices gives them a golden chance to build their future and live a morally upright life (Bauder 45).
Censoring is a way of keeping secrets and, therefore, protecting the public from any misleading or damaging information in circulation. During cases of security threats in nations, it is wise to limit the information or content going round so as to prevent the people from panicking. Circulation of pictures and videos of people who have been killed during terror attacks is a way of promoting the terrorist activities. The government of such a nation should come up with rules and regulations regarding the circulation of such material. One sad case where censorship would have helped is a terrorist attack in West Gate Mall in Kenya where pictures of the terror attack victims went viral in social media was viewed as a way of praising the Al Shabaab for the killings. The victims had family members, and this affected them psychologically in seeing how their loved ones were killed, and yet the images were in circulation. The Government of Kenya took an initiative to prohibit any media house or individual from circulating the pictures failure to that called for heavy penalties. In censoring such content, families are protected, and the general public does not have to worry about security threats from terrorists (Wright, Embrick, and Lukács 35).
Violence and aggressive behavior in children have a direct relationship with the content they watch. Children are likely to follow the acts of the people in movies or the video games they play and view them as their superheroes that could make them brutal or violent to other children or objects. Violence may be a temporary effect that does not necessarily have to cause children to engage in crime in later years. Children need to be protected from picking aggressive behaviors on objects or other children by limiting the content they can watch. In this way, bullies could reduce in schools and promote a healthy relationship between children as they go through the learning process. Children are creative and learn from what they hear or see; therefore, video games and movies that are associated with violence should be cut so as to protect the children from developing brutality or violent behaviors. The future generation needs capable people and not violent individuals, and this can only be assured if children are protected from violent content (Paxton 23).
Every individual has freedom of worship, and this means that people have a choice to make in respecting other religions no matter what they stand for regarding a supreme being. Censoring should be done in any content that interferes with other peoples’ beliefs so as to protect the community from religion based violence. One such case happened in Paris where the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine had controversial cartoon images depicting Prophet Muhammad of the Islamic faith; this caused the disturbance in the Muslim world. The magazine’s office in Paris was attacked, and twelve people were killed by terrorists who felt that their religion was being ridiculed. To prevent the occurrence of such acts, any content whether in video games, work on art or movies should be cut so as to avoid religious extremists from attacking those who seem to provoke their faith. In this way, censoring will promote people of different religions to live in harmony and respect each other.
Censoring would kill creativity in the media industry if so much content were to be blocked. Many people depend on media, art, writing or any form of expression to earn their daily bread, and this means that such people have to come up with new ideas every single day so as to remain competitive and have an impact on their target audience. Censoring these contents would render some individuals jobless and make them opt for other ways of survival some of which could be against the laws. Creativity drives the modern society, and people should have sovereignty to choose and do what pleases them most as long as they do not interfere with the other people around them (Popular Culture: Rage, Rights, and Responsibility 11).
People have a right to access information that they perceive useful to them from any content within their reach. Censoring would hinder people from getting the right to information, especially that dealing with their nation, development and security. Censoring, therefore, hinders people from gaining access to info that can be used to bring about positive changes in the society. In most developing countries, books that are thought to have a likelihood of creating unrests but this hinders people from having information about their civil rights. Censoring, therefore, hinders people from getting better governance because they do not have any means of creating awareness.
Censoring has both active and adverse effects on the society; this depends on what strategy is used. If censoring information is done for the right purpose it has benefits for the entire society but when info is withheld for selfish reasons it has negative impacts on the society. Censoring should be done in a sensible way so as to protect the society and not to cause harm to the society.
Works Cited
Bauder, Julia. Censorship. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Print.
Paxton, Mark. Censorship. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2008. Print.
Popular Culture: Rage, Rights, and Responsibility. New York: Films Media Group, 2005. Print.
Wright, J T, David G. Embrick, and András Lukács. Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies: Critical Approaches to Researching Video Game Play. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010. Print.