On Censorship
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The freedom of speaking is an indispensable part of human's rights, and it can also serve to protect human's other rights, for it provides a tunnel of letting others know when someone's right is deprived and gives the committer necessary pressure to accuse his acts. In the relation between individuals and government, this freedom is more important, for the government has a much bigger power over individuals. Public media is just the tunnel that individuals exert their rights of freedom to get a balance with the goverment.
In our time of increasing convinience in communicating with each other and receiving information from various sources, public media plays a more crucial role than ever, in the meaning to protect an individual's rights from possible deprivation of other individuals and institutions. However, for most of the human history, this tunnel was controlled by the government through censorship under various excuses. Among these excuses, to protect the so-called benefits of the nation maybe the most influential and enduring one. Yet, the investigation of the many cases in which the government prohibited newspapers to report honestly in the name of national benefits indicates that through not allowing public to know, the government is just protecting the benefits of some important members of it who are involing in that matter. This result is sure to happen, for these members can influence the decision of the go
vernment, given the government is entitled to intervent the media. Although the government is only entitled to do this when the declaration of the information can threaten the benefit of the nation, in actual censoring, the government decides whether the benefits of nation are threatened, and the definition of these benefits is so vague and can be explained by many ways, leaving the government much room to control the media according to its purpose. Thus, people read distorted reports, and don't know what is true...