Technology And Government Censorship: Intertwined

Technology and government censorship: Intertwined
More than any country in the world, the United States values and symbolizes freedom. Thus, most Americans have an obstinate belief that they are free; however, the truth is that their knowledge is being restricted under their unconsciousness. This act of filtering information by the government is called government censorship, and it has existed in our society since the time of Socrates in 339 B.C.E. Since then, government censorship has been constantly changing its characteristics and methods according to the advancements in technology. An alarming rate of technological advancement has boosted information flow, hence prompting the government to restrict information through censorship. As a

In fact, book censorship has existed for a long time in history, where the earliest evidence of book censorship has been recorded to be in 221 BC, in China. Book censorship is mainly targeted towards topics including some sense of violence, sex, racism, and others that are regarded inappropriate for children. Book censorship first began with the 1873 Comstock Act which aimed to ban literature that consisted even a little bit of sexual content. Later on in 1973, laws regarding book censorship further changed into “…the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” (Lehigh). The types of literature that were banned not only included books for teenagers and adults, but it also included comic books, which were sold in millions every month in the 1950s. Comic book censorship was later reinforced by the CCA organization, Comics Code Authority in the late 1950s (Crigger). With the advancement of technology, more books were published and as a result book censorship has become more prevalent and

This mass of information is an object of fear for the government because truth is risky, as Buddha had once stated, “Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” Since ancient times, the government has been trying to conceal the facts from the people; it’s just the methods that have changed, due to technology. Technology has entirely changed censorship from its original