Why Challenge Censorship?

Is something obscene because it made you stop in your tracks?

Because it raised an alarm in you?

Because it made you uncomfortable?

Or is it obscene because you weren’t ready for it?

Because you don’t want to acknowledge it?

Because you don’t want to think about the false sense of civility that our reality is filtered through?

What if the entertainment we turn to for escapism was conveniently providing perspective which allows us the knowledge to be prepared?

Prepared for things like death and the autonomic process, for things like fowl language and uncomfortable situations…

What if we could accept and embrace all aspects of life for what it really is?

What if… we could handle it?

Johnathan J. states, “I love the truth about meeting the audience where they are and giving them credit for their intelligence because you’re right, a lot of media talks down, dumbs down, or worst of all, holds back on people. The truth is that people can handle the truth. They are ready and they deserve the unfiltered reality.”

Why challenge censorship?

Let’s think about where censorship started. The invention of the print and press in the 1440’s catapulted the spread of ideas.

Take this quote into consideration: “In the world before the print and press, the rules of censorship were simple: if someone was saying something and you wanted them to stop, you executed them.” – Britannica Politica.

If we look throughout history, we’ll notice a pattern. Throughout the middle ages the Romans were subject to banishment, fines, or imprisonment – all punishment for speaking their minds.

In early Europe, Catholic inquisitions were known to murder those who offended the faith, similar to the behavior being observed in the Islamic world. When jewish poets dared to mock the prophet Mohammad, he had them executed for expressing their opinion.

In Soviet Russia, one could not so much as dare to speak against Soviet policy. An unprecedented amount of books were destroyed, coining the word “bibliocide”, and any Western influence such as movies or even music was strictly forbidden.

To this day, people living in Russia have expressed they feel like traitors just for wanting to discuss their disagreements with their government’s policies, or that they are afraid to bring up the wrong opinion to the wrong person.

We can find similar censorship in Afghanistan under the Taliban government, who went so far as to ban books published outside of Afghanistan, television sets, satellite dishes, movies, and recording devices themselves.

Google even aided in providing North Korea with its own isolated communist-friendly search engine. This was catered to filter out any content that did not comply with what government officials deemed safe for viewing.

Facebook’s censorship staff have been caught abusing their power by deranking politically incorrect candidates during European elections in order to push progressive views.

Shadow Banning has been known to take place on Youtube, silencing the voices of conservatives under the claim that they have broken terms of service.

Anti-progressive views are not banned outright. However, unfavored ideas can be made so difficult to access that its audience will be of little significance. Governing authorities have so much control they can make the internet connection significantly slower on pages they don’t want you to see, knowing that most people won’t bother.

What do we notice here?

That throughout history and present day alike, censorship has been leveraged to the benefit of those in power- who wish to keep it.

In modern media, film and TV, the FCC decides what is fit for viewers. Shouldn’t that be left up to our own discretion? While it is stated on www.fcc.gov that “the FCC is barred by law from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view”, it is still stated that “it is a violation of federal law to air obscene programming at any time.”

This begs the question, what is obscene?

Is it protecting the audience from the obscene, or is it filtering reality itself?

Shouldn’t we be aware of all aspects of the world we live in?

John Madison, a BA in 3D Animation from Digipen Institute of Technology writes on Quora:

“I went to Live Leak to watch the video of the terrorists cutting off a kid’s head. Why? Because now I have first-hand knowledge that this indeed did happen.”

In a world where those in power control our media in order to stay on top, why should we trust anyone other than ourselves to decide what we can and cannot watch?

To quote Madison, “Why would I settle for someone elses statement on what happened when I can get first-hand evidence?”

This is the principle that kept shock sites such as Live Leak and Bestgore up and running as long as they did – both of which have now been shut down.

John Madsion also writes:

“imagine if they actually showed the horror of wars on the news, uncensored. I bet less people would be so eager to go to war.”

This is an excellent point.

Though, according to www.statista.com, on average 4 million people tune into morning network news programs such as ABC, NBC, and CBS. However, according to www.businessofapps.com, there are 40 million audience members on Amazon Prime video alone.

While Madsion disagrees with the use of uncanny realism when it comes to gore in fiction, he states, “if I re-enacted the kid getting his head cutoff for a movie, and I did it so well that a frame from my movie and a frame from the actual beheading were identical, pixel-per-pixel, is one photo more wrong than the other?”

He closed his statement on the existence of shock sites with, “In summary, it’s no worse than the existence of a scary movie, but, because it’s not fiction, a valid source of information.”

What if works of fiction were carefully constructed with such research, consultations, and realism, that they too can serve as a valid source of information?

Through media entertainment, something so readily consumed; we could be inviting the audience to learn about subjects such as self-destructive personalities and maladaptive coping skills, or altruism and the embedded animosity in the human condition – all from what will either be a new, or relatable perspective.

What if we were to let subjects like the often undetectable nature of the systematic social influence process, the need to protect defendants against passion and prejudice, and abnormal childhood development into our home just as readily as we let in mindless entertainment and trash tv?

What if we could spend our leisure time understanding the world we live in?

How would that change the way we see our world?…And the way we see ourselves?

Would that future seem so obscene to you?