The Right To Receive Information, Censorship Is a Suppression of Human Rights

Filtering out materials that are considered inappropriate might be a reasonable reason for censorship but manipulating what the population can view contradicts the right people have for gaining rational freedom and it is never justified. Censorship puts limitations on our knowledge, thus stunting our mental growth. It limits our creativity and hides truths. If your not lying you should not need to censor anything. It also shelters us from the harsh realities that are present in today’s world. Censorship is not helping anyone, it is just making lives more difficult.

From the excerpt “The war photo no one would publish” Kenneth Jarecke took an image of an Iraqi soldier burned alive in his vehicle as he was trying to escape the flames speaks for itself. Although this image was taken more than 20 years ago it is timeless and holds as a visual representation of war. An image is worth a thousand words.

War photos are timeless and in this case, one image sticks out from the war.

Some might argue that the more we view explicit images our sense of empathy and understating gets numb. But if we are censored from these materials we may not even develop a sense of understanding or empathy. Beyond the right to gain information, Censorship is the suppression of human rights. Humans have the fundamental right to access and learn new materials. Censorship is controlling what other human beings in our society should think. This puts a limit to the growth of human potential.

Get quality help now

Bella Hamilton

Verified

Proficient in: Censorship

5 (234)

“ Very organized ,I enjoyed and Loved every bit of our professional interaction ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

It can also be detrimental psychologically among people who are affected by it. For example, in communist China censorship plays huge role in sustaining a strong ideology among its citizens. Censorship also is one of the causes for suicides in China. According to a local news report “Li Wufeng, 56, was known as China’s top Internet cop and was reportedly involved in maintaining a system of online censorship known as the Great Firewall of China.

Li was said to have jumped to his death on March 24 from the sixth floor of the office building where he worked after constantly being in a “bad mood,”. Briefly after this incident China’s Central Propaganda Department “ordered local news media not to report on his death without the permission of authority, according to a Web site, China Digital Times. Growing up in Ethiopia there was only one TV channel and it only reported propaganda to its citizens. The mass population did not get any bad reports about the bad state of the government and the nation, despite it being false. After I came to the U.S., I got a taste of free speech and free press. It gave me an idea on what people in censored nations such as Ethiopia or China are suffering from. Controlling what people can view and learn eventually leads to a disaster to a nation and its people’s well-being.