Censorship Pros And Cons

Censorship has become a controversial topic during recent years due to people's perception of concepts such as sex, violence, and hate speech. Many people and governments want things such as those to be erased from media and art to prevent them within our society. Others however, feel that children and others should be exposed to aspects such as these and that restricting the use of them in the arts would be a violation of their 1st amendment. Both sides have strong, deeply rooted views based in law, morals, or religious belief. Both sides also, however, have points that seem slightly extreme. For years the government and people of the United States and many other countries have worked to “shield” our population from violence, sexuality, and

Many songs today consist of lyrics with sexual innuendos or blatantly expressing sex. Most would assume that these songs would target a more “mature” audience, however, that isn’t the case. Children listen to these lyrics and are exposed to these idea’s much earlier than they would otherwise. In some cases, it has even led to the young children writing their own explicit sexual notes or poems (Marshall). Some fear that the issue could worsen and that the children could attempt to “explore” the things they hear in music and have an increased interest in pornography. But music isn't the only cause for worry when it comes to sexuality. Some governments, specifically that of Iceland, hope to accomplish a complete ban on pornography as a means to reduce domestic violence and misogynistic thoughts (Gunnarsdóttir). Although, successfully censoring all the pornography on the internet would be a difficult task to accomplish. Pro-censorship supports have their ideals based in many different reasons; i.e young children “exploring” sexual activities could be breaking the law and going against their faith by not following celibacy until marriage. On the topic of celibacy, a driving factor behind censorship has been the church. Many books and other forms of entertainment have been targeted for banning due to their content, which spans from violence to homosexuality (Gallo). Churches, governments, and individuals all work towards a crack down on censorship laws, however, on the opposite side of the controversy there are groups with a completely opposite