Censorship involves the suppression or prohibition of parts of media deemed obscene or unacceptable. There are arguments both for and against censorship. In the UK, the BBFC both censors and rates films to restrict certain content to certain age groups. Censorship aims to protect privacy, for example by omitting names from news stories, and to prevent offense, though it can limit artistic freedom. While censorship of explicitly sexual content in schools is reasonable, banning books solely due to their discussion of LGBT topics is overly limiting. Censorship is also useful for protecting the privacy of individuals like criminals who have served their sentences. Overall, censorship is a nuanced issue, and not always necessary in every situation.

1. Censorship
We see censorship a lot throughout various forms of media. The definition of
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.” So
basically, it is someone decided that a certain aspect of content is not appropriate for
a certain audience. There are many arguments for both sides, whether censorship
should be in place on certain pieces of media or whether it should be left as the
artist/producer intended. To many, especially in America, censorship is basically
taking away peoples freedom, by both muting what artists have to say and stopping
the audience from hearing it in a sense.
The organization that censors film and television in the UK is the BBFC. They not
only censor films but they also rate them. This means that people over a certain age
can buy the content or watch it in cinemas, and with televisions watershed, like what
gets shown before and after it. This means that they can keep the films more or less
as they are without censoring scenes, by having them restricted to a certain age
group. ADS/DIS OF CINEMA CENSORSHIP The Advertising Standards Agency
(ASA) regulates advertising. In terms of censorship, the most important part of
advertising censorship is privacy, so for example not putting a person’s full or real
name in the ad. This is to protect that person’s privacy and keep them from any harm
that may come from the advertisement, whatever it may be. The BBFC is a non
governmental organization, funded by the film industry itself, so that means that
there is no political motivations in the way that they censor and restrict films. They
were established in 1912 with being free of the government as an aim for the
company.
For me the main question is should we have censorship in the first place? Should we
cut out parts of pieces of media, whether they be artistic or entirely corporate, just to
protect people or to refrain from offence. To answer this question, we have to look at
both sides of the argument. There are many positives to censorship, for example, the
ability for a person in a news story to refrain from giving their full name, so that they
can keep their identity private. The ASA states that you may not portray someone in
an ‘adverse or offensive’ way unless you have the expressed written permission to
do so from the person. This is one of the positives of censorship, as it protects a
person’s identity, and say for instance, a news outlet such as Vice were interviewing
drug dealers about how they sell drugs, which would be a typical article for them,
they would not put their name or their face in the article, to protect their identity from
the police. On the surface, this may seem like a negative as they are letting criminals
get away, but the information that they learn could potentially help the police on a
much broader scale, so if they started giving the names of these criminals in the
articles that they write, nobody would ever come forward to be interviewed as they
know that they would just essentially get handed over to the police. As they know
that they can talk, we cannot learn more about how criminals operate in the UK. The
downside to censorship is that artistic pieces of media can either be watered down or
completely changed to what the original intention was from the author.
Libraries censoring books, an example of this is books about lesbian mothers in
some American schools, in the more religious states. To me this is very limiting, as it
doesn’t let children challenge their beliefs, which will be further imposed upon by the

2. people censoring what they can see. If this book was sexually explicit you could
justify ting it out of the school library, but there was no sexual content in the book so
they had no real justification other than ‘gay people are bad, just because’. In my
opinion, books should not be censored but if they contain content that could be
deemed offensive, they should be age restricted just like films and games, even in
libraries.
One thing that censorship is good for is protecting a person’s privacy. This is
especially pertinent in legal cases and for celebrities who want to keep their private
life out of the public eye. An example of this is the James Bulger case, where Jon
Venables and Robert Thompson were given new identities after their release from
their detention after the murder of James Bulger. These identities, including any
imagery of them and their names where kept a secret form the press, so that they
could start a new life after their sentences. This was done as this was a high profile
case involving children, which is normally a big motivator for people to take revenge
almost upon the former convict. This is a relevant example as just the other day,
Facebook moderators refused to remove illegal posts that revealed the identity of
Jon Venables, forcing the social media giant to remove it themselves.
To conclude, I think that we should have censorship in some circumstances, but not
in some. For example, I think we should respect the privacy of people who have
served time in prison by not releasing any statements when they are released. But in
some circumstances I think we don’t need censorship, for example I don’t think that
any books should be banned for their content, for example, in the U.A.E you aren’t
allowed to read Harry Potter as witchcraft is deemed illegal. So censorship should
not be black and white.
References Ben Lazarus. (2018). FARCEBOOK Facebook moderators refused to remove
illegal posts allegedly revealing Jon Venables’ identity – forcing company chiefs to step
in. Available: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5818070/facebook-moderators-refused-
to-remove-illegal-posts-allegedly-reifvealing-jon-venables-identity-forcing-company-
chiefs-to-step-in/. Last accessed 16th Mar 2018.