Poll: Censorship

[Trivun]

Things like the government, things that the public literally shouldn't know for very good reasons, that sort of thing should be censored. However, from an entertainment perspective, or things like porn or swearing or violence, that shouldn't be censored, but should be educated about and forewarned so people have the free choice not to partake in it if they don't want to. That's one of the many reasons I disagreed with Wikileaks while most of my liberal friends (and I'm pretty liberal myself) supported it - the fact is, that site couldn't tell the difference, or didn't care about that line and just printed literally everything without a thought to whether it would or wouldn't be sensible to do so...

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm not particularly fond of state censorship, and you're not going to find too many advocates of it on an internet message board for a gaming/pop culture website. It's kind of a silly question. It's rather like going to a MADD forum and asking what they think of binge drinking.

So, state censorship sucks. But self-censorship? Self-censorship is underrated, and hugely under-utilized, especially online. It's really just another word for "tact". And tact is just a skill...like lying, or judo, or math. It's something you're supposed to acquire naturally as part of the process of socialization as you age. It's something a lot of people (again, especially online) seem to feel is beneath them, as they cower behind their fundamental misunderstanding of their first amendment rights to try and avoid the righteous ass-beating they merit for being an insufferable douche canoe for the 15th time that day.

 

[StrixMaxima]

No censorship, of any kind, in any situation. Period. Censorship should be, at best, an internal mechanism, very private.

Paraphrasing Lenny Bruce: ?If you can't say Fuck, you can't say, Fuck the government.?

 

[Henkie36]

This is the free world and if my government thinks they can ban stuff from me, they can go fuck themselves. When I look at a country like Australia where every game with something more severe then a nosebleed is getting censored, I always think: ''Why are they taking this so well? Don't you wan't to decide for yourselves whether or not you you want to be in ankle high blood or not?''
One that is a relatively controversial point, or at least over here, is ''Mein Kampf'', whihc as we all know, was written by Adolf Hitler himself. Now before I say anything else, I will say that I don't agree with Hitler and that what he has done, we wish we could forget it. But banning this book for it's contents, that makes us do and that is exactly what worries me. If we forget what happend, and how it happend, it's going to happen again. Isn't the point of all those memorials, monuments, to remeber what happend, so that we'll never have to relive it? If someone can sneak up from under the radar, like Hitler, isn't going wrong again at one point if we keep doing this?

 

[Terminate421]

Nooooo! I hate censorship so much! Why should my fun be ruined because a 6 year old happens to be in the same room? Art should never have limits, if it has to have anything, it should have requirements.

 

[BringBackBuck]

It depends on what's being censored and who's censoring it.

I think this is a really good point. Most rational people agree that censorship has to exist on some level (see lots of good examples above about making bombs, hate speech, child porn, troop deployments etc).

To me the more important question is how is being censored, and who is censoring it? The government censorship process must be transparent, with producers of content allowed a fair hearing to question and appeal censorship decisions, the people should have input to ensure that the body responsible for censorship is representative and not pressured by minority lobby groups (eg religious groups). The criteria by which submitted materials are judged must be fully disclosed to the public and regularly (and publicly) reviewed.

 

[Aerosteam]

When it comes to language (swearing/cussing) I really don't see a point in censoring, I someone were to say "For **** sake!" or "**** you!" it's obvious what word comes to mind that is being beeped out, therefore no need for censoring. Nudity, on the other hand, is a different thing, if there were nudity in a movie/game, a person under 18 years of age shouldn't be watching that scene, according to age ratings given to a movie/game (but hardly any of us actually care about age ratings anyway.)