On Internet Censorship

Written: 4/26/23

Censorship: a word associated with controlling governments, political unrest, war, and other frightening concepts. It’s thought of as something that only exists under gruesome regimes. But it’s starting to take place within the United States, and that’s thanks to the internet.

We use the web to seek cures for our ailments, laugh at funny animal videos and find answers to our questions. Despite its usefulness, we all know that the web can be a flourishing space for dangerous individuals. This is becoming a problem. Some innocent users get scammed, stumble upon disturbing footage, and mistakenly engage in illegal activities. It’s no question that the internet isn’t safe for everyone. But America’s internet regulating bodies shouldn’t censor any of it in order to preserve everyone’s right to knowledge and restore the younger generation’s mental health.

Americans have a constitutional right to pursue knowledge that should be fought for and protected. In places like North Korea, citizens can’t legally watch certain television programs, despite the various clauses in their constitution guaranteeing freedom for all. According to defector and activist Yeonmi Park, “love, freedom, liberty, human rights, none of these concepts exist in North Korea.” Because everyone’s rights aren’t protected, citizens are hardly capable of expressing a feeling as universal as love. Censorship can have other ugly side effects as well. Along with threatening our freedom of speech, censorship can also ruin the morale of U.S. citizens.

Censoring inappropriate content has an impact on the mental health and rising crime rates of our nation. To elaborate, we can all agree that our children aren’t going outside and horsing around in the sprinklers like they used to. Being this fixated on their devices, the content they’re exposed to heavily impacts their development, which is a good reason for parents and regulating groups to censor their kids’ cell phones, right?

Because of the narrow margin of content they’re allowed to see, the generation succeeding us will grow to become softer and weaker individuals, as implied by Professor Jonathan Haldt. Referring to his article in the Reason magazine, “When we raise kids unaccustomed to facing anything on their own, including risk, failure, and hurt feelings, our society and even our economy are threatened.” If kids aren’t exposed to inappropriate content, they don’t develop the skill to handle adversity. This is bad news for the future of our nation as crime and suicide rates continue to climb. Today’s youth are taking to violence and spiraling into depression because of minor inconveniences, as their parents shelter and cradle them, saying that everything’s going to be fine. Having government or social media groups hide inappropriate content will only make matters worse.

While censorship like flagging inappropriate content and fact-checking altered media can be helpful, many social media platforms use power to suppress voices that bring different opinions to the table, labeling them as offensive or misleading. The Federal Communications Commission is known for regulating communication through all sorts of mediums and its officials admit to finding it hard to draw the line between inappropriate and acceptable content.

“It’s very difficult to make subjective judgments about the content of speech,” states FCC commissioner, Brandon Carr. “Oftentimes government actors that would go after so-called hate speech or other types of speech can have a very different view of what that type of speech is than citizens or other governments.” The fluctuating political views and the overall nature of the FCC and other content regulating agencies makes it difficult to decide what to censor and what not to. Thus, the fact-checking that is done to begin with is, in itself, unreliable.

Because of America’s international persona as a beacon of freedom and how censorship contributes to its already blossoming fragility, no group or institution should be capable of suppressing content. Luckily, according to Surfshark, social media censorship cases worldwide have decreased by 35% from 2020 to 2021. We are on the right track. It is up to us as Americans to use our voices to speak up against bias and suppression of speech on media platforms. After all, the concept of press freedom will continue to evolve, especially during this abstruse era of pervasive social media and internet use.

Works Cited

“Censorship Is Not All Bad: University of Central Florida News.” University of Central Florida News | UCF Today, 1 Apr. 2019, https://www.ucf.edu/news/undefined-14/.

Freerangekids, and JonHaidt. “The Fragile Generation.” Reason, Reason Magazine, 12 Apr. 2019, https://reason.com/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generation/?__s=qwdx3uannweanzws4nsm&.

Tehran, Virtual Embassy. “Censor the Internet? Bad Idea.” U.S. Virtual Embassy Iran, 20 Apr. 2018, https://ir.usembassy.gov/censor-the-internet-bad-idea/.

“What Is Censorship?” American Civil Liberties Union, https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship.

“What We Do.” Federal Communications Commission, https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/what-we-do.

“Social Media Censorship Cases Decreased by 35% in 2021.” Surfshark, 21 Apr. 2023, https://surfshark.com/blog/social-media-censorship.

“Yeonmi Park | Is It Possible to Love in North Korea?” Yeonmi Park, YouTube, 20 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxRG8Ij8C_g. Accessed 19 Apr. 2023.