The Worst Part Of Censorship Is

And on this day finds itself another one of those Sundays that has rolled around, the Sabbath, the day of rest, the day of God, or is that Saturday.  And yet I find myself blaghing away for some reason. And I am not sure if I have blaghed about the topic of censorship or even discrimination, on this blog before, as I would have to search this blog to see, and that's if it would even appear and has not been censored. And with a website name called "No Police State" versus "Pro Police State", that name of a website surely finds itself entertaining the subject of censorship every so often in a conservative, patriotic or traditional world, or whatever you may want to call it, even in the age of digital and social media where transparency and alternative voices have a better chance of reaching the light. And so I decided to post some of those images in internetland of those "The Worst Part of Censorship Is XXXXXX XXXXX" images. And an interesting article that I came across in internetland regarding that topic of censorship, The Worst Part of Censorship...., reads as follows. And what, if anything, does this have to do with a No Police State. Have a great day of the sun and more.

Censorship is such an ugly word. In the context that it’s often used (internet piracy, journalism, and media) it sounds like it’s either the best or worst thing to ever happen to information flow. The definition of censor is “an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.” (via dictionary.com)
Most recently, after the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the government made the choice to not allow the photos to be released or made public in any fashion. In some regards, this is censorship. In a journalistic sense, censorship largely is not an issue in the United States. It is most prevalent in other countries such as China, North Korea, etc. Freedom of speech, however it is exercised is something that we take for granted here in America. It’s not something that we have to march for or fight over. It’s already clearly granted in our constitution.
However, do we truly have free speech? Are our words and actions in the truest sense of the word; free? Is there a system of government, or a collection of special interest groups and corporations that make up a large part of the information that we see on a daily basis? Does the information stream have it’s bottlenecks, wherein words are lost not truly free to move about as dictated entirely by the consumer?

WikiLeaks

 

Take WikiLeaks, for example. The self claimed goal of WikiLeaks (according to their site) is as follows; “WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists (our electronic drop box).” Generally speaking, what’s wrong with that? Journalistically, the concept behind WikiLeaks is nothing more than an aggressive means in which to release information (which we claim is free in the United States) to the public, in this case, online. Any true journalist should be more concerned with the relevance and impact of their story (information) than where the chips might fall should the story be published. WikiLeaks has faded from the public eye in some ways, but they’re continuing to do what they’ve always done.

Information

 

The point of information is to be shared, and in the high tech world we live in where terabytes of documents can be blasted around the world in matters of moments, it’s a journalists dream. If information is truly free as we claim it is, sites like WikiLeaks, and the free flow of information should be as open as possible. If there’s a problem with the government, or key insight into how and where taxpayer dollars are spent, for example, this information should be made available to the public, regardless of the consequences. Journalists have to be free to publish their information; and in the even that they’re not, there is always the internet.