The Pros And Cons Of Information Censorship

For the past twenty or so years information has largely been stored in digital form, providing the current generation of digital natives with access to more and more information in recent years. With this new flow of information available to the public has come increased censoring by the government. However, this is not a new issue as some might believe. Since the first primitive government was established information has been shielded and manipulated from the every day citizens of the world by those in power. The cause fought against information censorship enjoys the same past. For as long as information has been censored there have been those who have fought against it (Newth, 2010). This issue has arisen particularly in the United States, as some believe access to any information that exists is a right protected by the Constitution. The United States was founded by people, and established structure to be governed by people. Often people are blinded by the whirlwind of media, believing those in the public eye, i.e. celebrities, to be a step above the rest, almost a different species. Fundamentally, however, we are all the same. Those we entrust with
positions of power and authority are no different from a construction worker or mailman. We as a society elect to give certain individuals power, and those individuals choose to further widen the perceived gap by controlling us. Society gives people power, and those same people choose to hide information from us. The information itself is important, but not always the point. The act of censoring information and controlling what we know gives our government the ability to control our actions, a power which should be entrusted to no one. The right to information is no less important than the rights to life, liberty or happiness.
By denying the public the right of access to any form of information the government denies the public their basic rights. The public should be trusted with information, just as the public trusts government officials with the governance of their country. The government is not only defiling the rights of American citizens by censoring what information they have access to, but betraying the trust they bestowed upon them to make decisions in their best interests. Political and social activist said it best: “The right to know is the right to live” (FreedomInfo, 2006). This sums up perfectly what many take for granted, that information is not simply knowing, but something which influences every aspect of an individual’s
life. The recent advance of technology has given way to all new forms of information sharing. The current generation has grown up surrounded by media influencing and manipulating how they think and act, and the ability to discover anything at the click of a button has been given to these ‘digital natives’. However, this wealth of information has led to government interference. Just like all government’s before it, our American government decides for us what we should or should not know, forcefully taking from us that which makes us American: our freedom of will. Why should this right not be fought for, when we have fought wars for rights just as important?