Censorship

The control of the information and ideas circulated within a society is known as Censorship. In the 20th Century, censorship was achieved through the examination of books, plays, films, television and radio programs and other ways of communication to alter or suppress ideas found to be objectionable or offensive. Nowadays, if a book is causing controversy it must be presented to a court in order to take further investigation in it and to decide if it has to be censor or not. The justification for censorship has varied, with some censors targeting material presume to be indecent or obscene; heretical or irreverent; or defiant or disloyal. The purpose of censorship is to protect three basic social institutions: the family, the church, and the state so none of them if negatively affected by any ideas expressed in a book (Global Internet Liberty Campaign, Censorship).

Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private groups. Two fundamental principles are to be considered whenever a court must decide a case involving freedom of expression. The first is "content neutrality”; the government cannot limit expression just because any reader, or even the majority of a community, is offended by its content. This is because there is a principle of entertainment tolerance where is state that multiculturalism must be respect as well as different opinions the author might have as long as they are not offensive. The second principle is that a book may be restricted only if it will clearly cause great, direct harm to an important social interest and even then, the book may be challenged or punished only if there is no other way to prevent the harm. Other actions that might need to be taken in order to prevent the harm that is be...

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...st telling their children it is ok to lie and disobey (Op-Ed on Harry Potter by Judith Krug).

Censorship is the way to protect community from any information media that might be harmful in some way. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling is an example of a book that has caused controversies and have been challenged and even forbidden from some schools and libraries. The major reasons Harry Potter has been censored are: it makes the Wicca religion attractive to the reader, it has satanic messages and symbols and it leads children to disobey and lie to their parents. Parents from different parts of the world presented to their children’s schools with enough evidence for the book to be. Censorship aims to protect family, church and the state, and any book that would be consider harmful for these institutions will be censor or even forbidden.