Censorship

What was your understanding of censorship before the discussion, and how was your idea changed through the in class discussion?

  In fact, censorship is a new word for me, and after I had looked up it in the dictionary, my intuition was that censorship has such a general definition with regard to rules. However, it is really difficult for me to understand what rules are exactly, since I just need to obey school rules and transportation rules every day. Moreover, as a teenage girl, I preferred to consider the entertainment or sports news before. Thus, I have to admit that I even wasn’t able to identify the concept of censorship before, and I have to admit that after researching on the internet, and in-class discussion, I got much more clear ideas about censorship today. First, it will be easier for me to organize all of the thoughts by defining censorship into two major groups that one is social-censorship，which includes state- owned countries and different governmental departments, and the other one is self- censorship, which includes private companies and individuals. Either one type of censor is able to protect us, but in my eyes, censorship is a double-edged sword, which has not only pros, but also cons. For instance, if censorship is overspent, which will block the free flow ideas, which is the point for the development of human-being. Also, some improper censorship may invade people’s privacy. In addition, sometimes, the governments just use censorship as an excuse for hiding what they are actually doing from citizens, but we do have the right to know what happens to our country. In all, it is hard to balance the pros and cons, which weigh more, so just use it judiciously.