Trey Patton

Comp 1 Pd. 4
Mrs. Cramer
December 7h, 2018
America isn’t a “Freedom Symbol” anymore

The very place you get your “Trending News” from has more than likely been censored a

time or two. This is shocking because growing up, everyone learns about how “free” it is in the

US. But in reality, there are countless times people have gotten around an Amendment and

censored the press. The reason people censor the press is usually out of greed. They do not want

the public knowing or finding out something bad or someone to say something bad about them.

On the other hand, it could also be because a journalist is about to put up an article that will

make a stock plummet. Censorship of the press is a terrible concept because it limits what people

can and cannot say about certain things, as well as the fact it goes against the First Amendment.

To start off with, censorship is a terrible1 idea because if the press is censored then we,

the public, do not get coverage on all the stories. This does not seem like too bad of an idea, until

you click on a link to read about a court case you have been following since it started, just to

learn it was censored by the journalist’s boss! Another example of this would be if a worker for

the New York Times got charged for murder. The owner of New York Times could censor any

article about the murder, this would be a tactic to make sure the New York Times do not get any

bad publicity for the worker having worked for them. One might think to themselves, “How

could they censor the internet, would not that violate the First Amendment?”. In fact, it would

not. This is because the First Amendment was written before the internet existed, this allows the

1 Hyperbole
Federal Communications Commision (FCC) to influence the internet, which it has done before.

Some people think this is as bad as World War II2! Furthermore, even the news would be

different. This is because the reporters would only be allowed to report certain things, and it's not

likely they would be allowed to cover what they want to cover (Censor the internet). This is

because all of the “juicy” stories would affect someone in power, who would not take it kindly to

a news reporter broadcasting what happened to all of the world. This happens in places like

North Korea, where people are more often than not denied the internet as a whole (Censor the

internet). All in all, censorship is not a good idea.

That brings up the next point, which is the fact that it is against the First Amendment

right. So how is anything censored if censorship is not allowed? The answer is not as simple as

one might expect. For starters, look at any other country that has censorship of the press. For

example, North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia (10 Most Censored Countries). Those

country, as everyone knows, are not the country you want to be in. Saying the wrong thing can

get you killed, or worse yet, sitting the rest of your life in a dirty prison. Clearly, that is not how

it is in the US, but censorship is censorship and the only other countries to have it are not fun

places to be in. On the other hand, how is the internet even censored? That sounds like it violates

the First Amendment, in which case it actually does. But how is that legal? Well, this censorship

is not the type that happens when a worried mother uses a web filter, so her child does not get on

websites she does not want. This censorship happens when a company purposefully takes out or

denies information from being published online. The truth is, it's not legal. But it does not show

up in court often (Legislations and Court Cases Pertaining to Online Censorship in Several

States). That is because it’s almost just swept under the rug. It happens so often, even if reported,

2 Simile
the court system would not be able to keep up, which is the sad reality. This is just another

reason why censorship of the press is a bad idea for everyone.

Someone on the other side might say, censorship allows companies to make sure they’re

not saying anything bad about themselves. But, if your employees are saying something bad

about the company they’re working for, then there are more important things that company needs

to work on, like keeping their employees happy. This is known as libel, which is when someone

publishes something saying terrible about someone else through the use of the press. This is rare

that an employee tries to publish an article bashing their employer, but it does happen

(Strickland). Although it does not happen often, one example of this would be when Google tried

to censor their workers. This affected hundreds of google employees, these people were upset

that the company secretly decided to make a censored version of Google, the search engine,

special for China (Conger). This means that China would get a special version of Google the

search engine that would be censored. This of course, upset a lot of people, since they did not

want their internet censored. This is the sad reality for Google workers.

Another point the other side could say is that it would censor out all of the hate speech.

The argument here is that censorship would allow hate speech to be a thing of the past. Why

even deal with hate speech anymore when you can just silence the person saying it, right? Well,

not exactly. People are finding out now that censorship does not actually end hate speech. What

ends hate speech, is more speech (Strossen). Furthermore, the First Amendment is still a thing,

even if censorship is widely ignored. That means that you can not just simply censor what

someone is saying just because it is offensive. That would be violating their First Amendment

right, which would not be as easy to oversee as censorship of the press is. In other words,

freedom of speech is freedom of speech, you can not just simply limit it just because its
offensive. The First Amendment does not protect United States citizens against being offended

by someone saying something offensive to you. The only thing they could limit the First

Amendment for, is when threats are made or when someone says they are going to do something.

If they do not say they will, do not make a threat, and there is no imminent danger, then they can

not limit the First Amendment Right.

In conclusion, censorship is one of the worst things that could happen to the US. It limits

what US citizens can learn through the news, as well as the fact that it literally violates peoples

First Amendment rights. Next time you notice something being censored, try speaking up against

is as much as you can. In other terms, you could throw words in their face 3. As stated before, the

best action to do when someone faces hate speech, is to speak more. This drowns out the hate

speech so people do not even notice the hate speech.

3 Metaphor