I've found an interesting blog titled "Somebody think of the children" which is distributed by Michael Meloni. It contains all kinds of latest news relating to censorship within Australia and around the world.
A post on it listing 20 worst cases of censorship interests me, the list includes media texts being censored due to child abusing, pornography and other moral panics.
This makes me think about the topic of censorship: should controversial media texts being censored? I've mentioned in my first post "my understanding of citizen journalism" that some restrictions might be necessary for preventing the blogosphere. But now, I am thinking that to do so may cause the consequence that mistakes will occur and it is also hard to define the limitation of censorship.
One case that has been mentioned in Meloni's blog is that a 61 year-old Queensland resident being arrested by the police because of uploading a video that is believed containing child-abuse images. When I saw this case, I thought if I were the police, I would consider this as serious offending video that should be censored. However, it turned out that this video was actually about a Russian circus family training their kids, and the Australian Classification Board later classified this video as M 15+. This case was listed on top of the worst censorship cases provided by Meloni, which really surprised me because I then put my self into the position as a ridiculous person who is anti the freedom of speech.
Indeed, some cultural and individual activities can cause other people's discomposure and the feeling of antipathy. But when standing on a more tolerant point of view, to allow these things exist is to prevent the diversity of our global culture as well as the web culture, to censor thing is equal to limiting people's choices.
I think that to define the limit of censorship is a though task, on the way approaching it, mistakes are unavoidable. But to remain critical and active is important for all the citizens.
Here is the link of the mentioned blog: http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/australia-worst-censorship-2009/
I totally agree with you about the blurry boundary and the conflict between moral panic and cultural identity. I also remember there was an other case about a old Chinese women doing Guasha(a popular treatment for sunstroke by scraping the patient) to her little grandson. However, this image was widly debated in western countries, believing this is seriously child abuse. I am afraid of that with the development of global common point of view, more and more cultural heritage will be censored.
ReplyDeleteAnother deal that i concerned about is that the governments prohibit people geting to know what they don't want citizens to know on the excuse of ofending moral standard.
Video, images, and other media might be misunderstood if looked only one sided. However, I think this is really hard to prevent.
ReplyDeleteI think back to the topic of micro-celebrity. the term celebrity might be used for people who achieve something on the internet, such as top 5 you tube subscribed channel. Although his video might be very misleading. This way, many people want to be micro-celebrity and put images and videos in a one sided point of view to gain attention. In this sense, blogger and other online informant is somewhat responsible.
Then, how to stop them show misleading image and video? we can't censor everything, can we?
I agree with your main argument that accurately defining what is worthy of censorship is a difficult task. I'm not sure if you know, but the Labour government recently released that they will in fact not legislate the internet censorship laws concerning child pornography. This is, I believe, a real indicator of the impractical and futile nature of censorship and especially its susceptible nature of jeopardising notions of freedom of information.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great link!