How Censorship In The Media Is Taking AWay Our Freedom Of Speech

Shh! You Can’t Say That! We live in an age of freedom, at least that’s what we’re told. We have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to express ourselves any way we can. But how accurate is that statement? How far can we actually go before our freedom of speech is taken away from us? What kind of sensitive information do we have to talk about before the government shuts us up? Of course, in countries like America and the United Kingdom, we don’t think about this. We see countries like China, and North Korea, where their freedom of speech is completely taken away from the people. We sit back and feel sorry for these people, but how free are we? Are we just living in a state of delusion? How much censorship is used in the media today, and how long has this been going on? We as people are beginning to see that the information in the media is not reliable anymore, some of us believe everything that comes out of our television set. Is censorship in the media slowly and silently taking away our freedom of speech? “Congress shall make no law respsecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…” (Leatherman 1). Over the years there have been many attempts to change, or re-interpret the first amendment, or in other words to abridge these freedoms from the American public. A constant attempt that has been used throughout history is censorship in the media. Censorship is either suppressing, removing, or restricting information. We see it today. An easy example is censorship in our television shows, we bleep out curse words, or blur out images on the screen in order to keep it inoffensive to the public. But is something as simple as that taking away our freedom to express ourselves? “Censorship’s main role is to restrict the scope for action,” (Cohen 26). Of course this is not the same case for an example like bleeping out words on your favorite

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