Which type of expression is defined as being offensive or indecent in nature?

Defining Censorship

• DEFINITIONS of CENSORSHIP

  "Supervision and control of the information and ideas that are circulated among the people within a society. In modern times, censorship refers to the examination of books, periodicals, plays, films, television and radio programs, news reports, and other communication media for the purpose of altering or suppressing parts thought to be objectionable or offensive."
          -- Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia

  • What's missing from this definition? Censorship by whom?
  • Is censorship by private groups and individuals included in this definition? Do they "supervise and control"?

  
  

  "Official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a religious body, or occasionally by a powerful private group."
          -- The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.

  • Would parental control over children be considered censorship?
  • Would economic boycotts be considered censorship?
  • Does this includes suppression of information?

  
  

  "The term censorship, however, as commonly understood, connotes any examination of thought or expression in order to prevent publication of 'objectionable' material."
          -- U.S. Supreme Court, Farmers Educational & Coop. Union v. WDAY, Inc., 360 U.S. 525, 527 (1959)

  • Does censorship include punishment for thought or expression after the fact?

  
  

  "In its broadest sense [censorship] refers to suppression of information, ideas, or artistic expression by anyone, whether government officials, church authorities, private pressure groups, or speakers, writers, and artists themselves. . . . In its narrower, more legalistic sense, censorship means only the prevention by official government action of the circulation of messages already produced. Thus writers who 'censor' themselves before putting words on paper, for fear of failing to sell their work, are not engaging in censorship in this narrower sense, nor are those who boycott sponsors of disliked television shows. Yet all of these restraints have the effect of limiting the diversity that would otherwise be available in the marketplace of ideas and so may be considered censorship in its broadest sense."
          -- Academic American Encyclopedia

  • Is censorship limited to violations of the First Amendment by government?

  
  

  "The cyclical suppression, banning, expurgation, or editing by an individual, institution, group or government that enforces or influences its decision against members of the public of any written or pictorial materials which that individual, institution, group or government deems obscene and 'utterly without redeeming social value' as determined by 'contemporary community standards.'"
          -- professor Chuck Stone, UNC-Chapel Hill

  
  
• FORMS of CENSORSHIP
  • Preventive (exercised before the expression is made public)
    • Prior restraint by government
    • Licensing
    • Self-censorship
    
    
  • Punitive (exercised after the expression is made public)
  • Censorship vs. Taboos

    "In primitive societies, censorship is ordinarily the work of taboo, traditional prohibitions upon certain acts and attitudes; and those taboos are so thoroughly imprinted upon the minds of the young by the tribal elders that they become almost a part of the nature of all members of the group, without much latter necessity for enforcing conformity to these commandments."
            -- Collier's Encyclopedia

    "Censorship is a conscious policy; it may be enforced without the assent of the greater part of society. A tabu enters intimately into the scheme of feelings of those who entertain it. The tabu is particularly effective in self-control; when it is applied by group action to those who do not entertain it, such action is generally spontaneous and unreflective."
            -- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

    • Taboo becomes censorship when it is applied to outside members who do not hold that belief.

    
    
• WHAT is CENSORED?
  • Speech
  • Art
  • Books
  • Periodicals (published with set frequency)
  • Films
  • Plays
  • Photography
  • Television programs
  • Radio programs
  • Internet (Web sites and e-mail)
  • News reports
• WHO CENSORS?
  • Government
  • Church
  • Private Pressure Groups
  • Speakers, Writers and Artists (self-censorship)
  • Anyone
  • Types of government/societies most likely to censor

    Societies most confident of their principles and of the loyalty of their members have allowed the greatest freedom from censorship. "In societies whose values have not been fully accepted by their people or whose leadership rests on shaky foundations, the heaviest hand of censorship has fallen. The relative prevalence of censorship is one of the features that has most distinguished autocratic from democratic societies."
            -- American Academic Encyclopedia

• WHY DO THEY CENSOR?
  • SELF-CENSORSHIP: A form of preventive censorship
    Why? To avoid:
    • Trouble
    • Controversy
    • Offending the audience
    • Economic boycotts
    • Lawsuits (e.g., libel, invasion of privacy torts, etc.)
    • Official censorship (self-imposed ratings to avoid government ratings)
    
    
  • CENSORSHIP of OTHERS:
    • "The fact that this censorship may have a laudable ulterior purpose cannot mean that censorship is not censorship."
              -- U.S. Supreme Court, City of Erie v. Pap's A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 322 (2000)
    • "Censorship operates on the assumption that the thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs and fantasies of human beings ought to be a subject of moral judgment and ultimately social and government action."
              -- Harry White, "Anatomy of Censorship: Why the Censors Have It Wrong," p. xvii
    • Censorship is a necessary obligation of the authority to protect the moral and social order.
              -- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
    • "The objectionable material may be considered immoral or obscene, heretical or blasphemous, seditious or treasonable, or injurious to the national security. Thus, the rationale for censorship is that it is necessary for the protection of three basic social institutions: the family, the church, and the state."
              -- New World Encyclopedia
    • Protect "the moral order upon which each and every citizen ... depends for his or her safety and well-being and upon which society as a whole depends for its very preservation."
              -- White, p. xv
    • Root motivation for censorship is fear that "the expression, if not curtailed, will do harm to individuals in its audience or to society as a whole."
              -- American Academic Encyclopedia
    • Three rationalizations for censorship:
      • Ideas are false or dangerous by the standards of the authorities;
      • The minds of those who would be subjected to the ideas to be censored are not capable of seeing the falsity and would be led astray; and
      • Ideas that lead to antisocial behavior may be censored.
                -- International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
• WHAT ARE CENSORS REALLY TRYING TO PROTECT?
  • Censors talk about "VIRTUE" -- really means "conform to the opinions, beliefs and values that they and theirs hold and which they would like to see enforced throughout the land."
            -- White, p. vii
  • Censorship REALLY "serves to protect the predominant ideology from which those benefit most who have attained power, wealth, status, and control within society." Censors seek to protect the prevailing ideology not because society would collapse, "but because it serves to legitimize their eminence and the various social, political and economic arrangements they oversee."
            -- White, xv
  • "More often than not, state action is not in defense of itself but in the form of a service to some influential members of the polity, in ridding the society of certain ideas that are considered offensive by these influential members."
            -- International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
• WHY ARE CENSORS WRONG?
  • Cannot define with clarity what is "blasphemous, obscene, or seditious expression. Clear definitions and standards are rarely publicized prior to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of those accused of illicit expression."
            -- White, p. xiv
  • Cannot demonstrate that the material "actually poses a danger to society."
    • Censors have to "forcibly suppress" because they cannot "convincingly demonstrate" that the material is false or harmful.
    • "Censorship arises when and precisely because someone cannot convincingly demonstrate to others that the opinions which offend him or her are indeed truly false or dangerous. If they could, there would after all be little or no need for censorship."
              -- White, p. xiv
• WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF CENSORSHIP?
  • "The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ... In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience."
            -- Henry Steel Commager, historian and educator
  • "Censorship that hinders peaceable opposition to the government in the short run creates the long-run danger of violent opposition."
            -- Americana Encyclopedia
    • "By suppressing reform the censorship may transform it into a revolution."
              -- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
  • "Every censorship produces a technique of evasion as well as a technique of administration."
            -- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
  • "It is a notorious fact that censorship or the threat of censorship may make the fortune of a book or play which might otherwise have failed to win public attention."
            -- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
  • Real issues are not racism or sexism, but racial and sexual discrimination. Emphasis on controlling racist and sexist thoughts diverts attention and resources from more substantive problems.
            -- White, p. v
  • Getting government of the business of censorship and re-allocating the funds regularly spent on it would:
    • Unburden the legal system (legislative and judicial branches), and
    • Re-deploy law enforcement agents to better confront "the real dangers and serious crime citizens face."
              -- White, p. xvii
  • "For the real evil in the world comes not from the disagreeable people, but from those so convinced of the absolute rightness of their opinions and beliefs that they would impose what they think and feel upon others. It is they who must account for their actions. For it is they who are most definitely in the wrong and from whom little good ever comes."
            -- White, p. ix

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How does the Supreme Court describe speech that is likely to cause immediate violence?

Why was the 1st Amendment considered to be such an important idea for Americans?

In which case would free speech be limited by the government?

In which event would we see freedom of assembly be limited?