Category: Censorship

If one’s friend jumps off a bridge would they follow? Most people are asked this question because they are doing something dumb that they saw someone else do. Now take that and apply it to watching movies and TV. If one sees or hears something on a movie, they are more than likely to repeat the action they saw or the words they heard. So, should movies be censored? Well censorship is mandatory for movies because they can lead to wrong doings, hate speech, and the influence of violence.

Many people make many bad decisions and it is most likely that it was because they saw it on TV or in movies. There are many murder mystery movies that are put out to the public and if someone with a messed-up mentality watches it they could become influenced by the actions the actors take. Society is not only influenced by actions but also by addictions promoted in movies such as gambling. Actions portrayed in movies play a big part in the world along with the language people hear while watching them.

Now-a-days it’s almost entirely hard to find a movie that doesn’t have bad language in it. More and more children are starting to watch movies that they should not be watching at such a young age, which is kind of a down fall their parents parenting. Profanity is the biggest problem in today’s movies. It seems as if there is some type of cuss word in every sentence said in a movie and when the kids watch it they think it’s okay for them to say it, when in reality it is not at all okay for them to use that specific type of language. This can lead to a big rise is disrespect from kids which is definitely not acceptable in today’s society.

Speaking of not being acceptable in today’s society, violence is a big no. Kids and adults are watching these movies and are basically being taught how to fight. There is even violence in kids’ movies which is causing more and more fights to break out in school where they can become seriously injured due to some method of fighting, they saw on a movie. As a society we should be able to know what an acceptable behavior is, yet we continue to watch these movies with bad language and violence which is causing a bad shift in society.

Censorship should be necessary for movies and TV, especially for kids, because they can lead to bad decisions, bad language, and learning how to be violent. In a perfect society we would not need censorship because we would know the difference between good and bad behavior, and we would be able to balance out the good and bad. Children would not be watching things unsuitable for their minds and everybody would have a good mental stability but unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect society. We need to take the bigger step toward censorship because we desperately need it to protect the minds of little children and the mentally unstable. We need to do what we can to protect the vulnerability and innocence of society.

In today’s world, it feels as if every sentence, no matter the platform, is inherently censored and carefully constructed. This phenomenon can be attributed to political correctness, or PC, movement. The PC movement has permeated all major platforms such as radio, social media, television, and literature. The fact of the matter is that some different phrases and motifs have been redacted from the acceptable language column. The intense and visual language that accompanies sex, drugs, and violence is nothing more than a mere vaulted afterthought. The PC movement within itself has innumerable positive aspects, such as being politically and ethically correct to be conscious of other races, genders, religious groups, ethnicities, and others. However, when recounting very troubling historical events, it is almost impossible to provide censorship. In Marlon James’s novel, The Book of Night Women, the negative aspect of this type of language comes to fruition. Marlon James knows all too well that without the use of this vulgar and explicit language, he wouldn’t be able to paint an accurate picture of the events, feelings, and people who existed in one of the most disturbing practices in modern history: Slavery. Marlon James, the author of the book, is a Jamaican born novelist who grew up in Kingston. The novel follows a young girl born into slavery navigate through a brutal reality immersed in slavery, rape, murder, inequality, and torture. James is able to create a masterful view of slavery in Jamaica through careful and thorough research combined with his own censorable experiences growing up in Jamaica. This use of language along with James’s use of broken English allows the reader to experience a world in which is unimaginable, but also historically and culturally representative of the era in which slavery existed. Despite this language, at times, being hard to read, the vulgarity and vivid descriptions of the repugnant events are strategically used by James to cast a light on the true horrors and events in slavery and forces the reader to align themselves with the real fear and events slaves had to endure.

Right from the get-go, James uses extremely graphic language to establish the style he intends on using in his novel. The novel begins with the gorily described birth of our main character Lilith. James exclaims, “People think blood red, but blood don’t got no color. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream for that son of a bitch to come” (James 3). James’s usage and infatuation with describing blood during Lilith’s birth is no mistake. Blood has transcended time as a universal symbol for suffering and violence. Describing Lilith’s blood in such details gives us a glimpse into our main character in the sense that she was born in blood and will be literally and figuratively draped in the substance throughout her whole life as a slave. Furthermore, James makes a connection through his language and detail when he says “Not when blood spurt from the skin, or spring from the axe, the cat-o’-nine, the whip, the cane and the black jack and every day in slave life is a day that colour red” (3). In vividly describing daily possible occurrences for slaves along with the red tint of blood, the reader can make a connection between just how prevalent blood is in a slave’s life. It is a substance that is so integral to a slave’s life that James wastes no time emphasizing that most slaves are both born, exist and, ultimately, die in blood. James also does something very interesting with the English language. By using improper English, James is able to express violence in a way proper English cannot achieve. His goal in doing so is to make the language violent to highlight just how violent slavery was within itself. James’s violent and descriptive nature regarding blood establishes it as a central theme to this novel which, in turn, means it is a central theme of slavery.

Too often when learning about slavery, the experiences of the women are neglected. James shatters this commonality in delving into the many rape scenes that occur throughout the book. It was not uncommon for women to be raped as a form of punishment and this punishment could come from anybody in the plantation’s hierarchy. However, one of the most disturbing and surprising rape scenes (if that is possible) described in the book comes in chapter two as 14-year-old Lilith kills Paris, a Johnny-jumper. This is especially surprising because Paris is black, an incidence that is often left out of the history books. Perhaps the best encapsulation of how language can illuminate the violence is when Paris exclaims “Pussy not doin’ me no favour all de way over deh, so get your black arse over yah…She don’t know what to do” (15). This language resonates with the reader and truly lets the reader imagine the terror in the room. Furthermore, James goes on to write “Better to get rip to pieces by the bushdog or wild boar…than feel that she walk up to a man by herself and let him ravage her” (16). This description portrays the phycological and physiological affliction being placed upon her. Moreover, this language allows us to not only grasp the moment but to also get an interior glimpse of what Lilith is feeling and thinking. For most, being raped and then killing the perpetrator is not a common thing. That is why James’s use of this harsh, crude language is so essential in painting a complete and utter picture of a truly harrowing act that thousands of women feared and dealt with daily.

In one of the most disheartening parts of the novel, James utilizes his style to illuminate the horrific nature of slave auctions and the dehumanization that occurs. Lilith, accompanied by her master, walks into town and passes a live slave auction. One particular slave, worth a lot of money, decides to, as James put it, “bolt” (324) when he was sold. James writes “But the negro man run only so far before the chain yank him by the neck and he drop flat on him back” (324). The dehumanization bestowed upon someone being sold with a chain around his deck is deplorable. To put it in perspective, if that had been an animal in this scenario in recent history, it would be animal cruelty. James also describes that when the slave tried to escape the white women and men were scared for their lives almost as if this human was a bloodthirsty lion (324). Lilith describes her yearning for freedom and guilt as she isn’t able to even look this poor human in the eyes. James writes, “But Lilith know the sound even though she never hear the wail before. She know what he bawling for and force herself not to look in him eye, for she know he looking at her” (324). In using this language, James is effectively distilling the bond of fear, uncertainty, guilt and the unspeakable bond they share. This language captures a deeper more intricate look into the white man’s motives and the effect on the recipient of terror.

As censorship establishes deep roots in today’s society, it is imperative that it is abolished when the idea that must be inferred from them isn’t comprehensible to the basic mind. James’s style tears right through the heart of proper language and casts light upon Jamaica’s nation language. As Brathwaite put it when stating what the Caribbean education system did wrong, “People were forced to learn things which had no relevance to themselves…came to know…English kings and queens than they do about our own national heroes, our slave rebels, the people who helped to build and destroy our society” (Brathwaite 310). Brathwaite indirectly acknowledges the need for a language that tells the story from their perspective and to shine a light not on the villains, but rather the heroes. Marlon James masterfully tears down the walls of censorship and in doing so allows the audience to be able to dive into the minds of slavery, the terror and the effect it had on them. He successfully and effectively gives his readers an unimaginable experience of which should be regarded as fact, not fiction.

According to the Lexico Dictionary, censorship is defined as the suppression or repudiation of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are deemed offensive, politically unacceptable, or a threat to safety and security (Lexico Dictionary, 2019). In many countries, governments censor web content and information to protect their citizens from harmful and dangerous material, but some officials go as far as to fully ban certain websites and applications from their countries. Moreover, censorship also helps during times of rioting, in which officials censor some pieces of information in order to subdue the chaos that is ensuing. Even though censorship has its benefits in the blocking of certain types of information, some people argue that this motion interferes with the freedom of information and expression in society. In addition to that, some may agree that internet censorship and policing is quite expensive and complex to carry out on a mass scale. Internet censorship can be considered as a curse to society because a lack of information can lead to ignorance, it limits the flow of information, and it can have a negative economic impact on society.

Censorship has recently been a subject of many controversies, with network neutrality becoming increasingly important and supported in society, and censorship even appearing in famous works of writing, like George Orwell’s 1984, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and many more. All of these books have something in common, and it is the fact that the blocking or censoring of information can lead to ignorance, control, and complacency within society. These books give a dystopian and exaggerated view on censorship in society, but also somehow foretell what could happen if censorship were to be implemented heavily on a mass scale. In the book 1984, citizens are kept under intense scrutiny from the government, and they are blocked from accessing certain types of information that are considered as “dangerous” to the foundations of society. With internet censorship, there won’t be any legitimate information circulating around the web, and the truth will be concealed from members of society. This could lead them to be ignorant, making them susceptible to control and manipulation from government officials to think what they want them to think, and see what they want them to see.

One infamous example of this is the widely-spread internet censorship in China. Several observations and investigations from Freedom House, a US non-profit organization, have shown that China has the lowest score of internet privacy and freedom, and has the highest score of internet censorship in the world, with an internet penetration percentage of 54% (Freedom House, 2019). Western applications like Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and countless others have been blocked in the country, and have been replaced by their Chinese, censored counterparts, like Baidu, Weibo, Youku, WeChat, Taobao, and many more (Leonard, 2017). Even though it is possible to use Virtual Private Networks to bypass these networks, the Chinese government took major steps to also block out VPN services and applications in the country. For example, the government ordered Apple to remove VPN services from its App Store completely, and along with other companies also agreed to new data localization laws, where users’ data are stored in servers in the country (Freedom House, 2019). As stated by The Independent, many young Chinese citizens have become so accustomed to Chinese media apps that they don’t even recognize their Western equivalents at all. As they are acclimated to Chinese applications and online services, many Chinese people are uninterested in knowing what has been censored online, permitting the government to construct an alternative value framework that competes with Western liberal democracy (Yuan, 2018), and further administering complacency within society.

Moreover, the imposition of censorship can limit the flow of information, content, and data in the general public. This can include the restriction of the freedom of information and free speech online. Although false information and fake news can be restricted through the process of internet censorship, it can also be used to cover up and filter actual/legitimate information, as in the case of China. According to the World Economic Forum, about 27% of all internet users reside in a nation where they have been detained by authorities for content and information that they have published, shared, or even liked on Facebook, and in 2016, around 38 countries have made arrests based only on people voicing out their opinions online (Regoli, 2019). In terms of freedom of information, an uncensored internet gives people the chance to freely express their views, thoughts, and opinions on the internet.

Freedom of speech can be defined as the right to express one’s opinions freely without any judgment and/or harassment from others who might oppose one’s opinions (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2019). Freedom of speech is a requisite element of civilization, since without its presence, society would be driven into a somewhat totalitarian regime, devoid of privacy, and full of control and manipulation. Even though privacy and freedom are fundamental human rights, many have ignored them completely. As stated before, although censorship can be used to block out false information and hoaxes, it can also be used by some people to cover up the truth from the public. Moreover, if censorship were to be over-implemented and imposed on society, this could hinder the freedom of speech and flow of information, since no one would be free to voice out their opinions and thoughts, and some content that is perceived as “sensitive” online would be blocked entirely, even though they necessarily aren’t dangerous or contain illegal material.

Censorship and internet policing are very prominent and powerful in society, but they can come with quite a heavy cost. According to research by Brookings in 2015, it is shown that countries spend around $2.5 billion each year only on internet censorship and policing. For instance, when the Egyptian government decided to cut internet connectivity in the country, the cost was approximately $100 million, and the amount was so large, that the government had to also take extra money from a different budget line (Regoli, 2019). This would cost taxpayers much money and could disadvantage the economic and financial sectors greatly. Paying and supervising people who monitor and censor the internet are also expensive and quite complex, and implementing censors on a wide scale is very difficult to carry out, since there are over 1.5 billion websites on the internet today. This would require many people to achieve, unless a program/algorithm that would automatically censor and filter were to be created, but this would also take much time to do.

Allowing the government to predetermine what is “good” and “bad” for the community can have a dramatic economic impact. If a certain large company made a complaint against a smaller company because it claims that the other company “violates” their rights and don’t follow the guidelines/don’t pass censors, the smaller company won’t be able to sell their products online, while larger companies that follow the guidelines will. This reflects the truth in society that most governments and lawmakers tend to side with larger and more famous companies, since they would gain more benefits if they favored the larger companies.

In conclusion, internet censorship can be considered as a disadvantage to society because a lack of information can lead to ignorance and complacency, it limits the flow of information and freedom of speech, and it can have a negative economic impact on society. If censorship were to be heavily implemented in the community, this could have adverse effects. Although censorship can be considered as advantageous in some cases, like in the stopping of riots and the blocking of inappropriate information, it can also be abused to block legitimate information, and most of the time, censorship and internet policing would bring more harm than benefits to society.

Han Fei was a philosopher who believed that not only healthy relationships can unite China but also strict rules with punishments for those who broke the laws and rewards for those who are loyal. He synthesized the majority of the legalist beliefs and wrote a book called Han Feizi (Feizi). The Qin dynasty used Legalism to form their government system and to maintain order and peace. Qin Shi Huangdi (the “first emperor”) had two tasks: destroy outside enemies and destroy resistance to his rule. By forcing Chinese citizens to build the Great Wall of China, he protected China by also abused human rights. He also censored media. Media is defined as a way of communicating and storing information such as books. Shi Huangdi ordered all useless or harmful books to be burnt so that their was no opposition to his rule (Si). Although China today doesn’t burn hundreds of books or execute hundreds of people for having a Confusian book, China is currently govern in a similar way to Qin Shi Huangdi because China abuses the human rights of their citizens and censors things such as Winnie the Pooh on social media platforms such as TikTok and Twitter.

On many social media websites, Winnie the pooh is being compared with the president of China, Xi Jinping. One example is Xi Jinping shaking hands with the Prime Minister of Japan being compared with Winnie the Pooh shaking hands with Eeyore. Another example is the president on the roof of a car being compared to Winnie the Pooh on the roof a his little car. The president thinks it is offensive and therefore blocks Winnie the Pooh on all media (Stolworthy). This is similar to the book burning period during Qin Shi Huangdi’s rule in some ways. In addition to the fact that both are media censorship, both actually benefit the country in its own ways. In the Winnie the Pooh situation, the government believes that these comparisons may lead to Winnie the Pooh becoming a symbol for communism. These may be harmless memes in other countries but can have a greater effect on the power and control the president has in China (McDonell). In the book burning situation, Qin Shi Huangdi did this to ensure that order was maintained in the land in his own minaical ways.

Other media censorship that happens is when the government alters the words of posts on social media. The government can also close discussions of topics that endanger the president since the president wants to maintain and keep all the power (McDonell). When Bytedance purchased TikTok, they started to censor content that was against the Communist Party such as the protests in Hong Kong. In addition, they started to feature videos that are about Xi Jinping. However, TikTok states that they do not censor political things. They said that ‘[they] have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content, and [they] would not do so if asked,” but many do not believe that statement (Yuan). This is similar to when Qin Shi Huangdi tried to erase history (from books) so that he can remain very powerful and influential. Both these examples (Winnie the Pooh and TikTok) show that media was censored to benefit the president and that the rights of Chinese citizens to express their thoughts were denied.

Another example of media censorship and human rights abuse was with the posts on Twitter about the event that occurred in Tiananmen Square. Chai Ling was twenty-three years old when she was interviewed and lives in the Shandong Province where she majored in psychology and was a teacher. She said that it was very dangerous at the time, since there may be a massacre at Tiananmen Square. She also said that the government can and will kill protesters, but the Chinese civilians had to protest for their rights and risked their lives for this movement. She knew that democracy will give the people rights and independence, but there is no independence or human rights in China (Ling). In Shanghai, about one hundred chinese accounts were taken down a few days before the 30th anniversary of the event that occurred at Tiananmen Square. Twitter stated that they were doing a simple routine to try to stop spam but there were some errors and accidentally taken down some accounts. However, when they said that they recovered all the accounts, some users still weren’t able to get their accounts back which caused users to not believe that that actually happened. They believed that the accounts were taken down by Chinese authorities. Officers even went to Chinese users to force them to delete their posts or maybe even delete their accounts. For example, a human rights lawyer posted a picture in protest and his account was taken down later. In addition, at the end of 2018, China’s Minister of Public Security blocked Chinese Twitter accounts (Mozur).

Hong Kong was previously a British colony but was returned to China in 1997. Although Hong Kong is part of China, it is autonomous (self-governing). This was under the policy, ‘one country, two systems’ under the Basic Law which invalidates in 2047. However, Beijing is weakening the Basic Law and taking away the independence of Hong Kong. This is being done by the Extradition Plan. This bill with allow people in Hong Kong who oppose (don’t follow) the Communist Party to be detained, transferred to China, and imprisoned. This bill is also in relation to 37 other crimes. Therefore, it takes away the rights of citizens of Hong Kong. They will be forced to be a part of the Communist Party. This led to protest. About half a million people protested against the Extradition Bill all because of the fear of having their rights taken away. This protest is still happening right now and is the largest protest since 2003 (Ives).

Social media is becoming more widely used in everyday life and is becoming a platform home to a larger variety of content. There has been a lot of debate over whether social media regulation is necessary and what this type of regulation will mean for people’s rights and freedoms. Many argue that social media is becoming just as influential as mainstream media and therefor needs to be restricted. while social media is now becoming a more diverse platform regulation will cause a number of problems for its users such as formation of bias or unfair censorship.

Social media companies are privately owned so they do not have to abide by the first amendment, this means that through the censorship of their content they are not violating anyone’s right to free speech or expression. Australia does not have a bill of rights and no explicit right to freedom of speech or expression in the constitution. Although, Australia has ratified several agreements that elaborate on the international declaration of human rights Australia does not have to follow these international laws. Although Australia does not have to follow this agreement it would still be denying or restricting citizens implied rights to freedom of expression. As social media users are still being restricted from uploading content even if it is controversial as it is still a from of expression. Contrary to this, censorship is necessary on social media because it provides restriction to content that is not appropriate for general viewing or the audience it is being targeted to. Individual influencers can have a weighted impact on their followers’ opinions and actions especially on younger, more impressionable audiences. Online personalities sometimes don’t understand the extent of influence they have over their audience and the potential harm they could cause, regulations can help shield children from this harmful content. Lack of restrictions and regulations can also lead to corners of the internet where communities that promote dangerous content can grow and false ideologies can spread without being suppressed.

In Australia internet service providers have broken a law if they fail to remove content regarding acts of murder, attempted murder, terrorism, torture, rape or kidnapping. However, this excludes things like medical procedures, violent sports and things that are fictitious. Outside of legal terms social media platforms will also have their own policies on what is and is not acceptable on their site and will regulate an individual’s or companies’ content in accordance to that. This becomes a problem on where the line is drawn and how far censorship can go on certain media platforms. Advertising on these sites has also taken off, with majority of large brands having their own social media profiles to advertise their products along with paid ads that show up on a user’s feed. Advertising a product on social media can sometimes even prove more efficient than advertising through TV. Advertising can play into media bias when it comes to the sorts of ads a platform will and will not promote and the political and social effect it can have upon a user. With political figureheads having their own social media accounts and political parties buying ads, it is important that no person is favoured by the site.

Social media have followings just as large as majority of mainstream media outlets and have just as much influence over the population. With these large followings you could argue it is only appropriate that they have the same forms of regulations that mainstream media have. Why should television content be regulated regarding explicit content when social media reaches millions and can be accessed at any time? With all these users and specific regulations, you must be careful of seeing through someone’s bias. The real issue begins if censorship gains a bias and leads to the users gaining ill-informed opinions due to not being shown all perspectives. An example of this is the extensive internet censorship in China that blocks or removes posts and content to do with certain topics that the government does not support or want to be known. This not only unfairly censors certain people’s views and attitudes but can cause ignorance towards issue among viewers as they have access to filtered information and cannot gain a researched opinion.

Overall, regulations of social media can be seen as both beneficial and harmful to society. By using censorship viewers can be protected from damaging content but can also be restricted from expressing themselves and run the risk of becoming ill informed. It is important to explore fully both the advantages and disadvantages of what restrictions are being placed on these platforms and what possibilities they create.

Recent times have witnessed increased physical and verbal assaults on the Indian writers, thereby placing greater restrictions on publications and creative thoughts. At such a juncture, it becomes worthwhile to explore the dictates of censorship in certain theoretical as well as non-theoretical frames of reference. Such efforts would assist in preserving the integrity of literature and creative freedom of the writers in a democracy through a more nuanced understanding of censorship.

HYPOTHESIS/RESEARCH

There has been a spurious inclination in the normative impression of censorship towards its physical manifestations where it is customarily fathomed in terms of political power dynamics. Gone are the days when the right-wing governments were conveniently accused of suppression of free speech. In the current times, the embargo can be attributed to governments/authorities across the political spectrum. In India, books have been censored during the reigns of governments with leanings towards the right, center or left, but what becomes interesting is the nature of content that presents such writings as a threat to the system. Even the left-leaning government in Kerala that is assumed to be liberal and progressive, initiated an investigation against Malayalam translations of the works by Gopal Godse, which included a play on Nathuram Godse, the assassinator of Mahatma Gandhi, in 1998. Therefore, it appears that viewing censorship through political spectacles is shortsighted, if not fallacious.

Thus, there is a pressing need to understand censorship as a multi-stakeholder project which is accomplished through a well knot nexus between “unknown” participants rather than a top down decree from an isolated command center. The need of the hour is a comprehensive understanding that acknowledges the heterogeneous experiences around censorship, as well as ruminates the socio-cultural particularity of authority, circumstances and the writer. This necessitates a theoretical rigor to comprehend censorship in its entirety apart from its materialistic manifestations.

The ‘new censorship’ debates divulge that it is unfeasible to blend only politics with censorship for the reason that it is much more than just plain politics. The ‘new censorship’ debates has centered around, but not limited to, the theories of scholars like Judith Butler, Sue Curry Jansen, Annette Kuhn, Richard Burt and Michael Holquist. Sue Curry Jansen in Censorship: The Knot that Binds Knowledge and Power (1991) proposes that the tacit unexpressed structures should be the subject of analysis instead of the apparent socio-cultural power mechanisms, which has been the case in the past. The approaches of these scholars are lopsided, if not unsound. They do bring fresh insights on censorship by expanding its boundaries beyond the regulative aspect to include productive capacity of censorship. However, they fall victims to establishing a hierarchy between their theoretical complex postulations and the orthodox ideas of censorship.

It is equally important to draw a link between these theoretical preoccupations and their actual applicability on literary texts. Most of these critics fail to render any application-based model for their own theories; the outcome of this is a distrust of their definition of censorship that is as simple as they want it to appear. The intended research would analyze the theoretical underpinnings of censorship and put to litmus test the applicability of these Western studies in Indian setting. In the process, it would modify or repudiate the principles/theories of censorship for a more authentic hypothesis relevant for Indian censorship of literature by conspicuous focus on local socio-cultural and political milieu. Even so, it would not attempt to generalize and prescribe an understanding which is Pan-India considering the diverse socio-cultural and literary traditions of the nation. It would only suggest an understanding that is closer to the Indian sensibilities.

Apart from Perumal Murugan’s Mathorubagan or One Part Woman (2010) and Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories (2015), the research would borrow analysis from the infamous ‘Rushdie Affair’ or the banning of Rushdie’ The Satanic Verses (1989) -reasons for the ban, multi dimensional effects on the reader and the writer, theoretical and pragmatic justifications that surfaced. By making use of the postulates of ‘new censorship’, the research would delve upon to scrutinize the already existing theories. The research intends to move beyond the simplistic binaries of for/against in the normative censorship dialectics by problematizing the construct of censorship.

To begin with, in simplistic and crude words, censorship can be understood as an individual minding another’s business. For instance, if a person finds Rushdie’ The Satanic Verses (1989) objectionable, the remedy, again simplistically, would be to avoid the same. Censorship of literature is akin to social engineering involving “planning” of literature as well as the creative thoughts of writers and readers’ expectations. Eventuate of this exercise is a literature that is a concoction of compromise and complicity, incorporating not just the censors and writers but all those who form the system. This tickles the brain with the metaphysical concerns of purpose of art, the responsibility of an artist towards the society, society’s responsibility towards an artist and literature’s potential of hurting society-all within the ambit of censorship.

Moreover, the conception of censorship is fundamentally based on three assumptions. First, literature, is capable of radically affecting the belief systems and point of views of the readers. Thinking about it in terms of plain yes/no would invite the charge of oversimplication. Second, the work of literature has a universal effect on all the readers and the corresponding response towards the work would be homogenous. Such an assumption is fallacious given the sundry responses that literature is capable of evoking from the readers depending on their location with a particular ‘system’. Third, reading of literature can be context autonomous and unattached to the socio-historical and cultural contexts of the work as well as the reader. A preliminary reading of Hansda’ The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories (2015) highlights that the stories will be interpreted differently by a Santhali and a non-Santhali, since the former would be better capable of appreciating (or/and getting offended) the nitty-gritties of the cultural milieu of the stories.

The persistent defense of censorship of its imperative role in maintaining the morality and public order is essentially a pre-Enlightenment notion where the individual was secondary to the State. In a postmodern and post-structural world, censorship becomes redundant since novels become a “realm where moral judgment is suspended”, to quote Milan Kundera from Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts (1993). This suspension of morality is the morality of novels. Therefore literature can never harmonize to the diktats and structures of the human constructs of religion, State and so on. Therefore, it would be an interesting study to see if, at all, literature can be censored because all attempts of censoring fall apart since it is an outlier in the conventional set up of human made ‘structures’.

Censorship assimilates multifarious repressive measures ranging from governmental to non-governmental interference, post-publication banning, withdrawal of an already published work by means of coercive manoeuvres or putting a public display of aggression against the work. It foregrounds the power nexus between knowledge and authority, as popularly discussed in the Foucauldian power-knowledge liaison, resulting in the questions like who decides what to censor, for whom to censor and for how long. Nevertheless, the readers as well as the critics append a literary perspective to the interpretation and reception of the censored work. In this light, the works would be analyzed in terms of why some texts are censored, what makes them ‘worthy’ of being censored, what is the nature of content of the censored texts and what makes certain texts threat to the State.

Besides, censorship has been operating itself in a mutated form in the democratic polities. The democratic state moves one step forward by ‘creating’ a demand for censorship among the community and groups that influence through their opinions, simultaneously, begetting the notion that censorship is indispensable for their survival- social, political, moral and cultural. Such sections are unfailingly kept at unease about the transforming esthetic, moral, sexual and cultural norms. Hence, it is crucial to understand that there is an active possibility of the readers that may be hand in glove with the upkeep of censoring authorities, even when they may apparently oppose censorship.

Such a partnership adds to the recently evolving form of silencing: Killing. G.B. Shaw’s pronouncement that “assassination is the extreme form of censorship,” assumes greater relevance in the recent Indian context that has witnessed killings of several writers, journalists and activists like Gauri Lankesh, Narendra Dhabolkar and M.M. Kalburgi who were murdered for their beliefs and ideas that were propagated through their writings.

Therefore, the materialistic basis of censorship accentuates a paradox in its scheme of things. While wielding power it exposes its inherent weakness by admitting its deep-seated fright of power of speech, enquiry and critique. Thus, censorship becomes open acknowledgement of trepidation that finds resonance in the Butler’s “performative contradiction”. She writes that censors are trapped in an equivocal situation, where they, carry the censored material within its own ambit. The research would contemplate on what would have happened had Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1989) not banned in India. How could it enervate the censorious institutions?

Also, the inevitable dyadic structure of censored text, concurrence of the palpable and the veiled meaning, calls attention to the providential interpretation. Censorship, thus, has to be contextualized and uneasiness between text and context needs to be embraced. While analyzing the above concerns/questions, the research would see the position of free speech. It would attempt to study the ethics of dissent, opinion and representation by scrutinizing censorious institutions. Analyzing this pragmatic aspect of censorship would entail picking up from Foucault’s discourse analysis, the aftermath of which saw the mollification of the Manichean split of regulation and free speech. Within the poststructuralist framework it ensued a deterministic role in regulating speech.

In addition to being victimized by the thought police, the writers grapple with critics’ crackdown and the asperities of self-censorship. After the public burning of his book One Part Woman (2010) and threats to his life, Perumal Murugan said, “A censor is seated inside me now. He is testing every word that is born within me.” This leads one to the theoretical plane, where the research would attempt to do away with the facile inference of self-censorship as one of the repercussions of censorship. By exploring the subliminal space, the research proposes that censorship arrests and rouses the creative thoughts. The writers anticipating a ban tend to adopt stylistic techniques, like myths and folklore, to circumvent censorship. The primary literary texts of the research would be used to make a point that censorship can be as much productive in certain cases as it is restrictive. One can find self-censorship conflated with stylistic innovations in the fact that the first novel published by Perumal after One Part Woman (2010) controversy was a biography of a goat entitled Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat (2017).

Furthermore, Annette Kuhn in Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909-1925 says that censored movies must be analysed/watched in “terms of their absences, of what has been actively denied expression in them”. Extrapolating the line of thought in literature, the comment essentially destabilizes the perception that censorship is always repressive. By primarily concentrating on that which it negates, censorship presents itself as litotic, a radical version of meiosis with political horns. Thus, censorship is marked by a fatal disjunction: the forbiddance of divorcing what is banned from what is sanctioned also coalesces them. Thereby, the paradoxicality of censorship can be envisioned as capriciousness.

Capriciousness earmarks the vacuity that censors most despise, the play of meanings they most diligently attempt to desist. The upshot of blatant censorship is an augmented awareness of prohibited material. However, a consequent fallout can be a complicit audience that is cognizant of dyadic structure of the text censored. For such readers, the text becomes a concurrent reality of manifest and quenched meanings resulting in a reception hitherto unthought-of: they get acclimatized to finding for the hidden connotations crouched between the lines. Therefore, censorship, in an archaeological praxis, becomes a reading of ‘betweenness’ of lines. Burt’s “deconstructive” definition of censorship also treads on the same path. The research would dig deeper the paradox of censorship and its conception within the mainstream discourse. It would investigate the manner in which the censored works wield power over the censors through the hidden meanings, meanings that always escape the comprehension of the censors.

In addition, censorship also acts as a conduit of power employed to attend to self-interest and a testimonial of practical competence. Subsequently, it lends itself well to the political domain, where language, and by corollary, literature, becomes a battleground for the capture of symbolic power. In Language and Symbolic Power (1991), Pierre Bourdieu justifies the organic role of censorship calling it a structural necessity within the overarching integral role of language. Stanley Fish in There Is No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing, Too (1994), says that there is no absolute freedom of speech, and, posits that the congruity of every statement is tightly situated within a specific “interpretative community” at the receiving end. Allowing certain play of possibilities and disallowing certain others ‘construct’ the meaning within a specific context. This makes censorship an ever-present aspect of language system.

If the two writers were to be believed, it would appear that the exercise of censorship dialectics in terms of for/against becomes sterile for the reason of appropriation of freedom that technically never fully exists. Censorship does. Consequently, one can only consider the degree of its effects rather than contending on its existence altogether. However, it would be equally sophistic to accept the blanket presence of censorship in all contexts without qualifiers as propounded by the two writers.

The research intends to check the validity of certain theoretical assumptions of censorship within the Indian context through the textual analysis of works, which were/are banned in India. These assumptions need to be re-evaluated, extrapolated and critiqued during the course of the research to adjudge whether it is possible to do away with censorship or the leviathan of censorship is too formidable to eschew.

PRIMARY SOURCES

1. Murugan, Perumal. One Part Woman. New Delhi, Penguin Editions, 2010.
2. Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. New York, N.Y. : Viking Penguin Inc., 1989.
3. Shekhar, Hansda Sowvendra. The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories. New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Publishing Private Limited, 2011.
4. Bourdieu, Pierre. Language and Symbolic Power. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1991.
5. Burt, Richard. The Administration of Aesthetics: Censorship, Political Criticism and the Public Sphere. Minneapolis, London: U of Minnesota P, 1994.
6. Burt, Richard. ‘(Un)Censoring in Detail: The Fetish of Censorship in the Early Modern Past and the Postmodern Present.’ Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1998.
7. Butler, Judith. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. Abingdon: Routledge Press, 1997.
8. Cline, Victor B. Where Do You Draw the Line?: An Exploration Into Media Violence, Pornography and Censorship. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974.
9. Davis, James E. Dealing with Censorship. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1979.
10. Ernest, Morris L. and Alan U. Schwartz. Censorship: The Search for the Obscene. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
11. Fish, Stanley. There Is No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing, Too. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994.
12. Holquist, Michael. ‘Corrupt Originals: The Paradox of Censorship.’ PMLA 109.1 (1994).
13. Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860.
14. Jansen, Sue Curry. Censorship: The Knot That Binds Power and Knowledge. New York, Oxford: OUP, 1991.
15. Khosla, G. D. Pornography and Censorship in India. New Delhi: Indian Book Company, 1976.
16. Kuhn, Annette. Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909-1925. London, New York: Routledge, 1988.

Internet is ubiquitous in every household across the globe. Today, more than 3 billion people, approximately 45% of the world population, are online, a trend that is not likely to slow down anytime soon. Everyone has access to massive amount of information that is available at finger-tips. It provides a platform where people can connect from two different ends of the world and share their thoughts and opinions, thereby serving as a powerful engine for free expression. The United Nations deems it a human right to be able to access the internet and all the information on it free of any restrictions. Since it’s so pivotal in our lives today, anything done to restrict it’s use forms a topic of discussion. One of the big concerns surrounding it in recent years is Internet Censorship. Internet Censorship is a regulatory mechanism to control what can be published, accessed or viewed across the internet. The Internet has become the new battle ground between governments who censor what their citizens access or post online and ordinary individuals who want unimpeded access to information.

Censorship of internet is a double-edged sword. It has it’s merits but in others it can be detrimental to society. On one hand censorship can limit the illegal activities carried out online and consequently protect children, who most often fall victims to such ominous activities. It can curb the spread of fake news, propaganda, often caused to ignite communal hatred, thus helping to maintain social stability and national safety. Unfortunately, censorship also limits creativity and knowledge, by restricting people’s potential to access information that can facilitate development in their lives. There is no place on earth where there is absolute freedom. Internet is one such platform, where everyone can express themselves freely. It transcends the barriers of creed, caste class and religion. Giving someone total control over what can be accessed and what not would mean infringing on basic human rights.

Thesis Statement

Censorship is futile as not only has it been ineffective in restricting access, it has also had the side effect of popularising blocked content

Ok. Agreed that the modern day indispensable thing called Internet can be a vile place and calls for censorship. But how effective has the government forced censorship been in mitigating the menacing effects of Internet? Authoratarian regimes such as China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia are at the forefront when it comes to censoring news and information online. Each of these countries have a variety of control mechanism in place, mostly aimed to limit access to sesitive political and religious information, pornography and gambling. Mostly in such countries, government is the sole provider of the internet. They are able to monitor the activity of all the users in the country and have variety of methods to limit their access. But in this age of internet, there always exists one or the other ways to circumvent the censorship that these governments impose. Researchers and activists are actively developing anticensorship tools. Censors on the other hand are strengthening their infrastructure to stay ahead. This has led to a cat and mouse game between the two. Having complete control over information is not possible – banned movies and TV Shows will always get surfaced. In some cases, the blocked content, after it’s revelation, goes viral following the Streisand Effect. The Streisand effect can be defined as the inadvertent popularity of any material as a result of its suppression. There have been many such instances in recent past which shows that the censorship isn’t just ineffective, it can also backfire horribly. These include the swell in the number of Twitter users after the Web Site was blocked in Turkey. The Turkish government also blocked access to Youtube to stop access to leaked recordings implicating the Turkish prime minister and other officials in corruption. All the efforts failed miserabely when Alexa’s rankings of website popularity showed that Youtube breached into top 10 most-visited websites in Turkey during the censorship period. The Streisand Effect in many instances showcases the futility of censorship. Banning content on internet generates more interest in content and increases its circulation.

The government needs to reconsider all the time, money and resources it puts into its various censorship practises because most of them are incapable of achieveing their objectives.

Freedom of expression should be a fundamental human right. Censorship is not ethically justifiable. It is against the freedom of speech and violates human rights. Besides, the censorship is controlled by the government. The government may abuse the right of censorship to suppress its criticism and discourse of political opposition. The government may even run surveillance over the citizens and have full control over the nation’s dynamics. The government has excessive control over the citizens and democracy of the nation is damaged greatly. This is a step towards dictatorship. National security is important but it is not worth trading liberty for.

Most apt example would be “The Great Firewall” which is a government controlled censorship run in China. They operate the most sophisticated internet filtering and surveillance infrastructure in the world, employing thousands

Censorship is curbing creativity and innovation

The Internet has made the world a smaller place. People across the globe come together and exchange ideas on intellectual and ideological levels, thus forming one true global community. If the Internet is censored, this integration on mass scale will not be possible.

Censorship not only removes all the offensive content from internet, we also lose access to some of the highly sort after and useful information. Along with people who surf the internet just as a time pass, there are also plethora of people who use it for education and other important purposes. The removal of such useful information will deprive people of their source of information and their right to grow as well. China presents a perfect example of how the whole country’s ability to innovate in the digital age is held hostage to a strong government’s censorship regime. Students are blocked from accessing foreign university websites. Academicians cannot collaborate with their international peers for carrying out researches because “The Great Firewall” blocks everything from online tools like Google Scholar to groundbreaking research papers. A generation of Chinese is coming of age with an internet that is distinctively different from the rest of the world. The government has setup its own ecosystem that has everything developed only for the Chinese. Many youngsters have little idea what Google, Twitter or Facebook are, creating a gulf with the rest of the world. With its own arsenal of homegrown apps and services China is fostering an environment in which many people appear uninterested in knowing what has been censored online. The proponents argue that this ecosystem has just about everything that the outside world boasts of – its own search engine, social media network , streaming platforms etc. However it is not a conducive environment for revolutionary thinking and innovation since there is no competition.

What’s more worrisome is that China has now started to export its model of a censored internet to other countries including Vietnam, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

The quality and authenticity of internet information is questionable. There is a ton of obscene content available online such as pornography, terrorist activities, racial hatred etc. Billions of people have access to internet. And it is the anonymity provided by the Internet which gives pornographers and criminals opportunity to abuse the medium. This disturbing content exerts negative influence on people especially children, physically and psychologically. Such content may weaken children’s moral consciousness and pollute their soul. In adolescence, the tendency of affected children’s to commit crimes also increases. Although there are laws in place to regulate illegal, immoral information and activities, it is very hard to charge a person for internet crimes. Thus, plethora of illegal activities are rampant on the internet.The supporters of internet censorship believe that the censorship can cleanse the internet information and protect people’s personal security.

However, trends seems to suggest that the censorship is not helping the cause. There is no evidence suggesting any relationship between Internet censorship and crime rate.

Censorship stops fake news. Around x % of all the internet users currently are on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. People share breaking news of the day and engage in healthy discussions and debates around that. But the ease with which the information is shared on these sites has led to its misuse. Today, anyone can set up their own blogs and use it to promote news and opinions without having to undergo any scrutiny. Recent Cambridge Analytica scandal brought to light the deep and lasting impact these online activities can have. When such activities can do so much as to swing the results of a major political event, the issue begs for attention.

However fake news could be a really dangerous excuse for censorship, especially when we are well aware that the people with whom the power of censorship is vested, could themselves be the perpetrator of fake news. Politicians like that power when it’s targeted at their enemies, not so much when they are on the receiving end. Many governments will try to suppress criticism and discussions that are against them. It violated the freedom of free speech.

Introduction

For Internet companies with huge information, information review plays a very important role. The information review work is the guarantee of the quality of the entire website and the lifeline of the website. For example, Sina, Sohu, facebook, Alibaba, twitter, etc., which generate massive amounts of information every day, as well as various large-scale forums and blogs, need professional information auditors to handle professionally. The auditing system and standards are different. For each company, we mainly analyze the comparison of Facebook and Weibo’s auditing system and the comparison between the two companies. In detail, we discuss how to judge whether the content is in violation and decide whether to delete it. Method.

Theoretical Context

The media review includes all television, print media, radio, film, cinema, text messaging, instant messaging, video games, literature and networking that have a large audience. Chinese officials can access uncensored information through an internal file system. Reporters Without Borders ranks China’s publishing situation as ‘very serious,’ the worst of its five grades. China’s online censorship policy is ‘universal’ by the OpenNet Initiative’s global network, which is also the worst level. Freedom House ranks China’s publishing as the worst grade ‘not free,’ calling it ‘a complex combination of state control over political media in China through news content, legal restrictions on journalists, and financial incentives for self-censorship.’ Realization’, and the implementation of more and more ‘network missing’ materials were written by active bloggers.

Detailed Analysis of Case Study

Censorship of Weibo

Sina Weibo is China’s largest and most popular Weibo platform. Registered users are said to have reached 500 million. Every Chinese netizen has registered an account. Unlike Facebook, Sina Weibo must undertake the review task. Researchers at Houston Rice University have collected millions of posts to analyze and identify the size and speed of postings on Sina Weibo examiners (or Weibo’s small secretaries). The paper (PDF) was published on the preprinted website arxiv. The researchers observed that 30% of the deletions occurred within 5 to 10 minutes after posting, and 90% of the deletions occurred within 24 hours (Zhu et al., 2013). Assuming that an inspector on Sina Weibo can read 50 posts per minute on average, then scanning for 70,000 new posts per minute in Sina requires 1400 people to work at the same time (Douglas, 2017). If they work 8 hours a day, then 4,200 people need to be satisfied (Douglas, 2017).

Given the limitations of the Weibo API, researchers have primarily tracked sensitive user groups that are most likely to send sensitive posts. From July 20 to September 8, 2012, researchers used the API to search the timeline of 3,500 users at a frequency of once per minute, searching for the common timeline every four seconds (Lee and Kim, 2012). Since Sina Weibo does not support anonymous queries, they use Tor to hide IPs and create fake user accounts. They collected a total of 2.38 million user timeline posts, and the deletion rate was 12.75% (Beveridge, 2015). Considering the size of the big data set that Sina needs to deal with, the peak value of 5 to 10 minutes after posting, especially considering that the deletion cannot be handled automatically, how does Sina quickly find and delete sensitive posts? (Agrawal et al., 2004) There are six hypotheses:

• Sina Weibo has a list of monitoring keywords, and the examiner will browse the posts containing these keywords to decide whether to delete them.
• Weibo has targeted the monitoring of users who frequently send sensitive posts.
• After discovering a sensitive post, the examiner can trace all relevant reposts and delete them all at once.
• By keyword search, Weibo deletes the traced post and causes the specific keyword to appear to delete the peak in a short time.
• The examiner’s work is distributed and relatively independent, and some of them may be part-time.
• The speed of deletion is related to the theme, and there is a difference in the speed of deletion according to the sensitivity of the theme. The researchers used natural language processing techniques to analyze the topic and found that some popular topic posts were deleted faster than others, such as group sex, Beijing rainstorm deaths and judicial independence.

The researchers summarized the filtering mechanism of Weibo, in which the active filtering mechanism includes: explicit filtering, Weibo notifies the poster that their post content violates the content policy (but sometimes the user is not sure what is the sensitive word blocked) Implicit filtering, Weibo needs to allow the post to go online after manually reviewing the post; pretending to post successfully, other users can’t see the user’s post.

Comparison between Censorship of Weibo, Facebook and Twitter

The difference between Weibo and Facebook and Twitter is:

(1) Buddy List

Sina Weibo does not have a buddy list function, and can not classify and manage buddies; Twitter has a strong list function, which can not only classify its friends, but also classify any users, and the classified list can also be subscribed separately.

(2) Interconnection and Interoperability

Sina Weibo and Sina’s user system integration, but not integrated with other websites; Twitter can be integrated with FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIn and other systems to achieve full two-way interoperability.

(3) Openness

Sina Weibo is currently a completely closed microblogging website, does not support API, does not support RSS, does not support computer client, does not support mobile client, in short, almost nothing is supported; Twitter is an almost completely open microblogging Services, in addition to registration, almost all features provide API support, there are countless client software, support for RSS, a large number of users use the unofficial client to update Twitter, users can deeply understand that Twitter is not a website, but a service.

(4) Review Mechanism

Sina Weibo has a review mechanism, the information released by users will be monitored, and “harmful information” will be deleted. This is also the experience of Sina’s pioneering Internet pioneers. There have been many microblogging platforms in China before, but they are unable to solve the information release. The monitoring problem is forced to shut down; Twitter does not usually review the user’s information, but the user who distributes the ad will delete it.

Facebook’s censorship policy was born in the conference room, but the implementation was carried out by an auditor in an outsourcing company in Morocco or the Philippines.

Facebook said that auditors have plenty of time to review posts and have no performance requirements. But the auditors said they would review about 1,000 items a day (Ellison et al., 2007). Each review time is 8-10 seconds, and the video will take a little longer (Ellison et al., 2007). That is to say, in less than 10 seconds, the auditor needs to filter more than a thousand pages of rules in the brain to make judgments.

For some people, pay is tied to speed and accuracy, and many people only work for a few months. One of them said that they had little incentive to contact Facebook when they found defects in the review process. As far as the system itself is concerned, Facebook mainly allows companies that hire these auditors to self-manage. The rulebook is written for English speakers, so many of these reviewers don’t speak the local language on the post, they sometimes rely on Google Translate, but Google Translate is not reliable. After all, understanding the local environment is critical to identifying inflammatory speech. An auditor said that if no one can read the language of the post, approve any post, which may have contributed to violence in certain areas, such as Myanmar. Although Facebook said that such an approach is illegal, it has little knowledge of these outsourcing companies, and it is difficult to control them because Facebook relies on these companies to expand elsewhere. Also, another obstacle to controlling inflammatory rhetoric may be Facebook itself. The company’s algorithms tend to promote the most inflammatory content, sometimes the kind of content that Facebook wants to suppress. Facebook tries to simplify the problems that even legal experts are likely to entangle into one-size-fits-all rules, such as what is annoying ideas and what is dangerous rumours. Facebook believes that these documents are for training purposes only, but the auditors say they are used as a daily reference. Looking at it alone, each rule might make sense. But on the whole, it is not necessarily the case. Jonas Kaiser, an expert on cyber extremism at Harvard University, says it’s “extremely difficult” for a technology company to delineate these boundaries. “It allows social networks to make decisions, and traditionally it’s court Work.” Sana Jaffrey, who studies Indonesian politics at the University of Chicago, says the ban is a shortcut. It requires the auditor to find a banned name or logo, which is much easier than letting them judge when political opinions are dangerous. But this means that in most parts of Asia and the Middle East, Facebook prohibits tough religious groups representing important segments of society, which is equivalent to closing one side of the debate. Also, Facebook’s decisions tend to favour governments that can fine or supervise them.

Facebook’s main seven review system initiatives:

• (1) Stronger detection: Improve the ability to distinguish error information, establish a better technical system, and detect error messages before people report.
• (2) Simpler reporting: Improved user interface makes it easier for people to escalate to get error messages faster.
• (3) Third-party verification: Zuckerberg wrote, ‘There are many fact-checking agencies, we have already contacted such institutions, and we plan to learn from more institutions.’
• (4) Warning: Label fake news tagged by third parties and the Facebook community, and display a warning when people read and share.
• (5) Relevant article quality: Improve the accuracy of “relevant reports” recommended to users.
• (6) Interrupting the fake news economy: Suspension of fake news sites using Facebook’s advertising services.
• (7) Listening: Zuckerberg wrote, “We will continue to work with journalists and others in the news industry, especially through their participation, to better understand their fact-checking systems and learn from them.”

Facebook released a Community Standards Enforcement Report, the first time they disclosed the disposition of non-compliant posts and fake accounts. In the first quarter of this year, Facebook deleted a total of 2,888,700 posts containing pornographic violence, terrorism and hated speech, while closing and deleting approximately 583 million fake accounts (Kingston et al., 2018).

On the same day, Weibo also announced the “Community Management Work Announcement” in April, which is a monthly report that began in 2018 (Tse et al., 2018). It also uses a series of figures to show the determination of rectification. Tse etc. Also found that in the past month, Weibo has blocked and deleted more than 62 million Weibo and nearly 70,000 junk and machine accounts were cleaned up, which is not counting more than 8,000 accounts that involve political, pornographic, pornographic, and false information.

The volume of the two companies is huge. Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with more than 2 billion active users and nearly 400 million Weibo (Chiu et al., 2012). Two months ago, Facebook’s data loss in two days was almost equivalent to two Weibos due to data breaches from Cambridge analysis.

There are some differences in the factors that drive the two companies to move. For Facebook, in addition to the big troubles of unseen privacy leaks, fake news, violence, pornography, prejudice and other harmful content on the platform have made it criticized for ten years.

Weibo was interviewed by the National Internet Information Office in January this year and was asked to rectify and disseminate the problems of illegal speculation, vulgar pornography, ethnic discrimination and other illegal and illegal information. The hot search list, hot topic list, Weibo question and answer The functions are off the assembly line and the offline time lasts for a week.

What content will be deleted? Both reports list the types of posts that are cleaned up. Facebook mainly includes terrorism propaganda, picture violence, nude and sex, hate speech, spam and fake accounts. Facebook has recently been widely criticized for hate speech, but the highest proportion of the deleted content is pornography – a total of 21 million ‘nude and sex’ messages were cleaned up in the first quarter of this year, the largest share of all categories. Ranked second is picture violence, with a total of 3.4 million deleted, accounting for 11% of the total (Plantin et al., 2018).

The same is true for Weibo, and posts for adult content have been deleted the most. Www.qdaily.com selected the announcement data of Weibo in the last three months. During this period, there were 4.814 million pieces of information about yellow information, accounting for 90% of the total number of posts (Glowacki et al., 2018) and the number of accounts banned due to pornographic content reached 29,134. Politically relevant information is also the focus of the post. For Facebook, this piece mainly refers to terrorism and hate speech. In the first quarter of this year, Facebook took a total of 1.9 million posts related to terrorism such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS), up from 1.1 million in the previous quarter (Vergani, 2018).

However, there are only 2.5 million hate speeches handled by Facebook this time, the smallest of all categories (Newman, 2018). Moreover, Facebook’s self-tested content accounts for only 38% of all tagged content, and more than 60% of content needs to be reported by users (Newman, 2018). Part of the reason for this is because ‘Facebook’s artificial intelligence system is still difficult to tell the hate in speech,’ said Guy Rosen, vice president of product management at Facebook. Another reason is that hate speech on Facebook may not be obvious in itself.

In April of this year, some false information on Facebook contributed to the conflict between Sri Lankan Buddhists and Muslims. The culprit is often a rumour with inflammatory nature that may initially have nothing to do with hatred and prejudice. For the Facebook security team, similar issues have increased the difficulty of the review.

On Weibo, this piece is expressed as ‘when the government is harmful information.’ Weibo cleared 393,000 pieces of such information in three months and took measures to prohibit the issuance of Weibo and comments, restricted access, and account closure for 7975 accounts (Liu and Jansen, 2018). Weibo does not clearly define what ‘when the government’s harmful information’ means. From the deleted account, the offenders come from various industries and even include @Liushenleilei, who interprets Jin Yong’s martial arts novels.

Accounts that publish false information, spam, etc. are also punished by Weibo or customs, or banned words. Counting the 51,100 accounts that were frozen due to automated behaviour, Weibo has dismissed 274,054 accounts in the last three months (Tian et al., 2018).

Facebook did not disclose the account status that was penalized for publishing these offending content but only listed the number of fake accounts that were closed. Guy Rosen wrote on the company’s official blog that in the first three months of the year, the company closed about 583 million fake accounts — a quarter of Facebook’s 2.2 billion active users, the vast majority of which were registered (Valenzuela et al., 2018). It was closed for a few minutes. Among all the processed accounts, Facebook actively identified 98.5% of the accounts (Valenzuela et al., 2018).

‘Artificial + Algorithm’ is the basic means of content review. According to Facebook, 99.5 percent of terrorism-related posts were found by Facebook itself, not by users. Facebook attributed this to the improvement of artificial intelligence technology: ‘This growth is mainly due to our increased ability to use image recognition technology to detect offending content, which can detect newly released content and detect old posts.’

Facebook’s trend toward image violence, nudity and sexuality, and spam messages are similar. About 90% of the content was discovered before users reported it, and the main reason was ‘technical upgrade.’

The only difference is that regarding hate speech, Facebook self-tested content accounted for only 38% of all tagged content, and more than 60% of content needs to be discovered by users (Marino et al., 2018). Moreover, only 2.5 million of the posts were processed, making people wonder if more content is still hidden in the dark (Marino et al., 2018).

According to Guy Rosen, vice president of product management at Facebook, the reason for this result is that artificial intelligence systems are still difficult to discern hate in speech. But Mark Zuckerberg is optimistic about the future. In his testimony in Congress, he expressed his plan to use AI to clear hate speech on his platform: ‘I am optimistic that in five to ten years, we will have some artificial intelligence tools to gain insight into different types of content. Language nuances to be more accurate.’

In the review mechanism, Weibo also has a clear distinction with Facebook. After being reconsidered and rectified in January this year, Weibo adjusted the content review technology. Wei Wei, vice president of Weibo, said in an interview interview in February this year that Weibo introduced the ‘edit manual intervention’ model, using algorithm mining as the basis, giving up the pure algorithm in sorting and selection, and introducing editors to violate the relevant The content of laws and regulations, social negative energy information, and excessive entertainment information are manually intervened. Under this strategy, the manual review team of Weibo is getting bigger and bigger. According to Cao Zenghui, there are now 332 Weibo operators, considering increasing to more than 600 people, mainly responsible for “managing accounts with influence”; content editing center, now 50 people, will increase to not low In the case of 100 people, he is mainly responsible for “enhancing the manual intervention review of hot search and other hotspot areas”; the number of security auditors is now 1,100, which will increase to 2,000, mainly responsible for “auditing and dealing with violations and regulations, multi-layer ‘Re-examination’; Weibo supervisors will be increased to 2,000 people, composed of Weibo public recruitment of netizens, report on the yellow information in the station, and then provide online subsidies and material rewards on a monthly basis (Mao et al., 2018).

Finally, there are 197 R&D personnel in R&D information identification technology, which will increase by about 10% in the future (Mao et al., 2018). Cao Zenghui said that the existing technologies include keyword detection systems, image detection systems, illegal information model detection, and harmful account feature libraries.

Counting all planned increments, Weibo has about 4,900 community content security personnel, and Weibo currently has 411 million active users (Lei et al., 2018). On average, each security staff needs to cover more than 80,000 users (Lei et al., 2018).

Facebook also has a human team, and their security team is divided into two teams: community operations and community integrity. The Community Integrity team is primarily responsible for building automated tools for reporting-response mechanisms.

Last fall, Facebook had more than 10,000 content reviewers and will expand to 20,000 this year (Tsay-Vogel et al., 2018). With Facebook’s current 2 billion active users, each security person needs to cover 100,000 users (Chou et al., 2019). This makes Facebook spend a lot of money. In 2016, Facebook allocated approximately $150 million to its community operations, and by 2017, Facebook increased the community operations team’s budget by nearly 50% to $220 million (Frattaroli et al., 2018). The Wall Street Journal quoted insiders as saying that the 2018 budget will be $770 million (Frattaroli et al., 2018).

In March of this year, the United Nations claimed that Facebook was responsible for spreading hate speech in the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. Facebook companies argue that it is difficult to stop the spread of hate speech because of the lack of reviewers who speak the local language. Guy Rosen said that Facebook would hire more local reviewers this year. Weibo did not disclose the specific funding for content review.

Conclusion

When a lot of problems break out, it is often caused by some deep-seated reasons for a long time. The fake news issue on Facebook is not just that the fake news we see is viral.

At the age of 19, Zuckerberg founded Facebook, which was originally based on a technology-controlled approach to building connections between schoolmates. Over the past 12 years, Zuckerberg has made some very strategic decisions to turn Facebook into the most powerful information ‘dealer’ on Earth through News Feed, but Zuckerberg The grid has not been incorporated into a media company. So far, the CEO of the technology-controlled company still emphasizes that Facebook is not a media company, but a technology platform that simply transmits information. Zuckerberg seems to have both fish and bear’s paws. He wants to provide more content so that users can stay on the Facebook page, and they don’t want Facebook to become an arbiter of authenticity. People are on Facebook. Still can publish anything that he wants to publish, so he subtly chooses to let the user judge the authenticity of the content, and provides the current so-called reporting system – but the reporting system does not play many roles. Therefore, the key to seeing the problem is that Facebook has not set its position first, perhaps not understanding its role and huge media influence. If you choose only to be a technology platform, don’t provide media services; if you choose to provide Media services should bear the social, ethical responsibilities that the media should bear. Because only when it is recognized that it is necessary to bear the responsibility of the media, it will be discovered that the media has more complicated considerations than the current mode of operation. For example, the establishment of corresponding news rules – first of all, should establish a clear, unified standard to distinguish what is news, which content can be pushed as news (this is also the most criticized aspect of Facebook’s News Feed business). The problem with Facebook’s media services should be solved not only by algorithms, engineers or subcontractors. In addition to this, there is a bigger problem behind these disputes and business, which is the issue of interest orientation. As a company, Facebook is a core company in pursuit of digitally rising financial statements, regardless of the product service or algorithm design. It allows users to spend more time browsing Facebook pages for more users. Facebook – because this can attract more investment for Facebook and get more advertising revenue. As a profitable company, this is understandable; but as a news service company, you can’t just consider the benefits, because news will affect users’ values, emotions and many important decisions – for example, in the United States may even affect the election results. In this case, more consideration of its benefits will inevitably lead to more problems.

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Society especially the young kids have become dependent on the internet to express themselves and their thoughts. So what if the freedom to express oneself through the internet was taken away? It can come as a way for internet censorship. It means that what is being published and viewed can be regulated and control or suppressed. Although according to the first amendment in the constitution whereas the citizens of united states, we have freedom of speech. If censorship was enacted, it would be a violation of our right and personal freedom. It will prevent individuals from accessing freedom of expression.

The Internet is a form of communication between towns, cities and the world that has revolutionized over time. Internet first emerged in the 1970s, but it wasn’t until 1990s did it become visible to the public in US (Dennis, Kahn; 2019). By 2015, approximately 3.2 billion people, or nearly half of the world’s population, were estimated to have access to the Internet (Dennis, Kahn; 2019). Through the internet, the public has become more active in political matters by posting online about blogs. North Korea, China, and eight other countries practice heavily internet censorship. Less than 5% of North Koreans have any kind of Internet access at all, and those who can get online access are always monitored (Kilpatrick, 2018). Some of the countries have the strictest regulations to restrict information for the public.

The Chinese government has the ‘great firewall of China’ which blocks access to some websites (Dennis, Kahn; 2019). They monitor others sites by making the public provide their national identification number in order to access the Internet in cafes (Dennis, Kahn; 2019). The people who violate the regulations are punished severely. Is that would happen to society in the United States if censorship was enacted? Maybe or maybe not. But the consequences and the extent of censorship would only continue to grow if the law for censorship was approved. The freedom to post on the internet and have access to information anything.

Through the internet, an individual can share their thoughts, views, and opinions with others. Having censorship on the internet will prevent illegal material from being shared, but it doesn’t have to resort to when there are laws that exist to prosecute individuals who commit crimes committed through the internet such as such as pornography. Censorship will only benefit those in power and the politicals because they would be the regulators who decide what is good or bad for the society to see online. Allowing the government that power will take away our own rights. They will decide if it’s acceptable for us to know about the movements or any attacks or threats we are facing, just like how China monitors the public. The supports say that fake information will be restricted but what about the real information?

Real information can be controlled as will based on the supervisor’s morals and values. Censorship can have dramatic economic effects impact at the local level. If a business cannot promote themselves online or sell their goods on an e-commerce platform, then they are placed in a disadvantageous state compared to industry competitors who would be allowed to sell online. The proposition will argue against it because of the safety of what the child can see and how it’s not child safe without censorship. Truly, this is the guardian’s responsibility, to have control and knowledge about what the child accesses. Social networking can lead to pronochron. The online games can lead to addiction for virtual reality.

Imagine a world, in which all of the media is filtered and treated to the point that one can only receive information the government controls. Sounds like something out of an Orwell novel right? This is happening in some countries around the globe, and it is more scary than one may think. Government censorship has taken the center stage in countries like Russia, China, North Korea, and some scattered middle eastern countries. Leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un restrict access to the internet, and to factual news, which results in most of the information given to the people being filled with propaganda (Rosenberg 1). This happens to the point where most of the citizens of these nations are completely unaware that information is being withheld from them. The plague against human rights by use of censorship is a serious problem in the world people live in today.

The right to be able to obtain true and honest information should be a basic human right, but this is being challenged by the act of censoring nations by governments of many nations (“censorship” 1). Even as technology has advanced over the last few decades, it has done little to stop the advance of censoring, as the government has advanced with it. The fact that there are people who cannot receive true world news is astonishing, it takes away from the knowledge of the people, and also creates a less educated voting class, if the country even allows their people to vote. Actions that restrict the flow of information to the people can be as subtle as passing laws that regulate “hate speech” or as large as scale as creating a gigantic firewall that restricts the internet (Rosenberg 1).

One of the most indetectable forms is the use of illegitimate news and state sponsored television. One example of this was a 2002 law, in which aimed at combating terrorism. What it did was target “extremist speech” by banning any action deemed as “incitement of hatred of hostility” and “humiliation of human dignity” (Rosenberg 1). What the Russian government did with this was take all information that could possibly be interpreted as anti-Putin, and block it from the mainstream, also taking any people that speak out and silencing them for “extremist” talk.

Even though Russia is widely known throughout the world for its false news reports, 94% of people still get their news from state sponsored television, and only 8% of those people believe that the news is false, or that information is being withheld (‘Censorship” 1). This is because the large amount of pro-Russia propaganda found on the state sponsored television. Because of the silencing of radical and extremist talk, all that is left is what the Russian government finds appropriate for the people, which of course is entirely propaganda.

Independent journalism is yet another thing that is under attack by the governments of illiberal nations, including the killing of such journalists. One famous incident of this was the killing of activist and reporter Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 (Anna 1). She was an independent journalist who spoke out against the Russian government, and wrote many politically driven books, articles, and columns. On October 7th, 2006, she was killed in an elevator in her apartment building. Eventually five men were arrested for her death, but it still remains a mystery who bought the contract for that killing (Roth 1). Many people believe it was another attempt to silence any free-thinkers by the government, this time with lethal force (Bennett 1).

Another place where the killing of journalists is rising is the Philippines. In December of 2016, newspaper publisher Larry Que was shot in the head while attempting to enter a building, which held his insurance office. Also, other members of his newspaper have received death threats after the publication of the controversial article two weeks ago. The government of the Philippines has come under fire after more than 75 journalists have been killed since the year 1992. Also coming under criticism was the president’s comments about the killings earlier this year, “’Just because you are a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you are a son of a bitch, freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something wrong.’ (Kam, Roberts 1). His comment perpetuates the attitude of some foreign governments regarding censorship and the right to independent journalism.

In a large portion of countries where censorship is used, artwork is under no exception. One nation like this is the Soviet Union, where there is a former law preventing artists from being funded by private organizations (Rosenberg 1). The only funding that artists, like painters and sculptors can accept, is from the government. This leads to the creating of politically acceptable works of art that are used to promote the state. It was only after the death of Joseph Stalin that people felt like they could express their beliefs through their artwork, leading to some artistic masterpieces from the social realism movement. Even with this law in place, some artists were still able to create art with politically motivated messages in them, such as Dmitri Shostakovich’s 5th symphony, and Vira Mukhina’s “Worker and IKolkhoz woman”. These works challenged the authority of the government by placing subliminal messages into them, which most of the citizens were able to pick up on.

One of the most extreme cases of censorship conducted by the government is North Korea’s. It is fairly common knowledge that the country of North Korea is somewhat cut off from the outside world. Its current leader, Kim Jong Un has come under fire from the rest of the world because of how censored the nation is, but it did not start with him, rather his grandfather Kim Il Sung, who founded the country in 1948. The tradition of the dictator-esque leadership roles has been passed down from generation to generation until it has landed us with its current leader, who was appointed in December of 2011.

The level of censorship present in North Korea is astounding. In the age of the internet, the United States has over 1.5 billion known IP addresses. Compare that to the surprisingly low 1,024 known IP addresses present in North Korea (“Propaganda” 1). Another example that sets North Korea above the rest is the censoring of world news. Nations like China and Russia allow limited news from around the globe, North Korea has completely shut itself off, effectively withholding every piece of information about the world from their citizens. Marketing of the state through use of billboards and state sponsored television portrays an evil and hate filled outside world, and gives the illusion that they are in the best possible place to live. The censoring of the nation has come to the point that other countries are using it as attacks.

A famous incident of when a government used censorship to attack another country was when rising tensions between North and South Korea came to a peak, South Korea began blasting world news over the DMZ, also known as the demilitarized zone, which Acts as a border between north and south Korea, with loud-speakers, informing the public about the rest of the world. This caused so much anger that China had to step in and tell both countries to “exercise constraint”.

A point that one may bring up to support censorship is that it, in some situations, helps keep the peace. If one withholds information that may cause an uproar in the population of a country, then it will prevent protests or fear, which may lead to worse situations for the nation. Although on the surface this may seem like a logical reasoning, there are reasons why this is not the best solution. An example one may bring up to disprove this claim is the pentagon papers released after the Vietnam war.

When America was first pushed into the war, Lyndon B. Johnson made the country believe that there was just cause for them to be there, including examples he used such as the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. It was later revealed through the pentagon papers that there really wasn’t any good reasons for America to be there. Naturally this caused a large amount of anger and hostility in the people of America, but in the end, it was better for them that they knew what happened. This shows that no matter how difficult the news may be to swallow, it will be beneficial for the people of a nation to know what is happening.

Although fake news may seem to be a problem in the United States, the use of fake news and censorship is far worse in other nations. Whether it be filing state sponsored television with propaganda, or completely cutting off one’s nation from the outside world, the censoring of people is a much more widespread issue than most people realize. We live in a world today where some countries keep information contained by killing those who spread it. People live in a world today where one of the most hated leaders in history is extremely loved by his people, because of the alternative facts that he spreads to his nation. The censoring of the people is a violation of our basic human rights, which are rarely taken into account by leaders of such nations, and if humanity wants to achieve any sort of worldwide peace or agreement, it begins with eradicating the use of censorship.