Aalia Harris

Professor C. Ellis

Freshman Composition

March 15, 2019

Draft 1

             If you were bored 50 years ago, your parents would tell you to go outside and play or read a book, now a child can just turn on the television or gaming system and be entertained for hours.  Children are now spending so much time watching different things, they can easily slip in violent and graphic content that their parents don’t catch. These graphic images can affect young influential minds in many negative ways. I believe that there should be censorship within television and video games but to an extent.

Aalia Harris
English
Professor C. Ellis
April 29, 2019
Censorship: The Killer of Information Draft 2
Just a few minutes ago, you probably did something that would put you in jail in other countries. Many people don’t realize what privileges they have, that other countries do not. That privilege is the access to free internet. Many countries still do not have uncensored access to the internet, such as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran, and China. The government in these are censoring everything they see and checking to see if the information goes against what they want you to know or see. I believe that countries should have access to free media.
Censorship is suppressing words, images, and ideas from people due to being unsuitable to the public eye. The act of censorship is usually done by a group in power. Censorship has been around since the mass spread of information, around 1440, when the printing press was created. Many groups in power throughout history have censored others, such as The Roman Catholic Church, Hitler and the Nazis, and many modern countries. This is quite shocking because we live in a world that information is spread quickly like fire in a dry forest. Yet many countries are still blocked from this information.
Censorship causes many problems, such as preventing the spread of information. If a country can control what is seen on the internet, then they may block anything they deem unsuitable. The country may choose to block important information, that is vital to the citizens from around the world. Countries can cover up problems within the country by limiting the access to that information. This can lead to propaganda within the country, which allows the government to manipulate their citizens and they don’t have access to information that can debunk these rumors. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman states, “Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently by means of censorship, co-optation, and propaganda.” This demonstrates that the government in the countries that are using censorship could block their citizens from information from the outside world, and then strengthen their power over their people by manipulating them with propaganda.
Censorship can hurt businesses as well. When a country censors what a business is selling, the company loses millions of customers. Since the government is not allowing the product or service in the country, this causes the citizens of the country to not be able to buy the service or product. Therefore, company is losing money, which hurts the business. Simon Denyer states, “Apple was an early victim, announcing in April that its iTunes Movies and iBooks services were no longer available in China, six months after their launch here (though shortly after it announced a $1 billion investment in a Chinese car service).” This illustrates a problem that is happening to many companies in many countries. Since these countries are preventing these companies to sell their services and/or products, the companies are losing millions of customers, which hurt the business.
Some believe that there should be censorship. They believe that there should be censorship due to the growing violence within media and the effect that it could have on adolescents and being violent. Massachusetts General Hospital has debunked this and has stated, “There has been extensive research and writing on the impact of violent movies and videos on behavior in kids. But research is clearly lacking on a direct causal relationship between violent video games and youth violence.” This illustrates that there is no link between media violence and violence within adolescents. So that claim is invalid. Massachusetts General Hospital has said that if a child is exposed to violent media and is showing violent behavior then you must look at other factors first. Also, if parents do not want their child being exposed to violent media then they use monitor what they are seeing. Its not the governments jobs to censor anything that the parent deems unsuitable for their child to see.
When a country has an internet shutdown, this a form of censorship because the government is preventing the citizens from having access it. Many countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, and Morocco, have internet and services shutdowns to censor their people. But doing this hurts these countries economically. It costs a lot of money to services and the internet down. Darrel West states, “Economic losses include $968 million in India, $465 million in Saudi Arabia, $320 million in Morocco, $209 million in Iraq, $116 million in Brazil, $72 million in the Republic of the Congo, $69 million in Pakistan, $69 million in Bangladesh, $48 million in Syria, $35 million in Turkey, and $20 million in Algeria, among other places.” The amount of money that countries spend on censoring their citizens are astounding. These countries could be using this money on other things, that their country needs. Using that excessive amount of money on censorship seems like a waste, and the cost for these censorships are rising.

Aalia Harris
English
Professor C. Ellis
April 29, 2019
Censorship: The Killer of Information
Just a few minutes ago, you probably did something that would put you in jail in other countries. Many people don’t realize what privileges they have, that other countries do not. That privilege is the access to free internet. Many countries still do not have uncensored access to the internet, such as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran, and China. The government in these are censoring everything they see and checking to see if the information goes against what they want you to know or see. I believe that countries should have access to free media.
Censorship is suppressing words, images, and ideas from people due to being unsuitable to the public eye. The act of censorship is usually done by a group in power. Censorship has been around since the mass spread of information, around 1440, when the printing press was created. Many groups in power throughout history have censored others, such as The Roman Catholic Church, Hitler and the Nazis, and many modern countries. This is quite shocking because we live in a world that information is spread quickly like fire in a dry forest. Yet many countries are still blocked from this information.
Censorship causes many problems, such as preventing the spread of information. If a country can control what is seen on the internet, then they may block anything they deem unsuitable. The country may choose to block important information, that is vital to the citizens from around the world. Countries can cover up problems within the country by limiting the access to that information. This can lead to propaganda within the country, which allows the government to manipulate their citizens and they don’t have access to information that can debunk these rumors. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman states, “Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently by means of censorship, co-optation, and propaganda.” This demonstrates that the government in the countries that are using censorship could block their citizens from information from the outside world, and then strengthen their power over their people by manipulating them with propaganda.
Censorship can hurt businesses as well. When a country censors what a business is selling, the company loses millions of customers. Since the government is not allowing the product or service in the country, this causes the citizens of the country to not be able to buy the service or product. Therefore, company is losing money, which hurts the business. Simon Denyer states, “Apple was an early victim, announcing in April that its iTunes Movies and iBooks services were no longer available in China, six months after their launch here (though shortly after it announced a $1 billion investment in a Chinese car service).” This illustrates a problem that is happening to many companies in many countries. Since these countries are preventing these companies to sell their services and/or products, the companies are losing millions of customers, which hurt the business.
Some believe that there should be censorship. They believe that there should be censorship due to the growing violence within media and the effect that it could have on adolescents and being violent. Massachusetts General Hospital has debunked this and has stated, “There has been extensive research and writing on the impact of violent movies and videos on behavior in kids. But research is clearly lacking on a direct causal relationship between violent video games and youth violence.” This illustrates that there is no link between media violence and violence within adolescents. So that claim is invalid. Massachusetts General Hospital has said that if a child is exposed to violent media and is showing violent behavior then you must look at other factors first. Also, if parents do not want their child being exposed to violent media then they use monitor what they are seeing. Its not the governments jobs to censor anything that the parent deems unsuitable for their child to see.
When a country has an internet shutdown, this a form of censorship because the government is preventing the citizens from having access it. Many countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, and Morocco, have internet and services shutdowns to censor their people. But doing this hurts these countries economically. It costs a lot of money to services and the internet down. Darrel West states, “Economic losses include $968 million in India, $465 million in Saudi Arabia, $320 million in Morocco, $209 million in Iraq, $116 million in Brazil, $72 million in the Republic of the Congo, $69 million in Pakistan, $69 million in Bangladesh, $48 million in Syria, $35 million in Turkey, and $20 million in Algeria, among other places.” The amount of money that countries spend on censoring their citizens are astounding. These countries could be using this money on other things, that their country needs. Using that excessive amount of money on censorship seems like a waste, and the cost for these censorships are rising.
Allowing Censorship in countries strips citizens, in these countries from having freedom of speech and expression. If people are posting and sharing content that the country does not find suitable then they will block it, this is striping these people of their right to freedom of expression. Some people believe that there should be censorship, to block media from showing what people find unsuitable to media, which some countries do. Miles Kenyon states, “. In five of those countries, we found instances of LGBTQ-related content being blocked. The list of blocked pages is extensive and includes LGBT news and culture sites, HIV/AIDS organizations, and advocacy organizations like the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).” This demonstrates countries censoring what they find unsuitable to public eye. This is negative because the government should not decide what is suitable for the public, it should be the public that decides.
The government should not dictate what you see within the media, yet so many countries are doing this. Censorship prevents people from expressing themselves and learning perinate information. Censorship can also hurt the countries economy and cause businesses to lose money. Censorship only benefits the government, and barely the people. That is why there should be not media censorship.

Aalia Harris

May 13, 2018

Research Critical Analysis Reflection

            This essay has been very stressful for me due to the topic I chose. I chose a topic that had too many factors to just puck one side. Censorship has too many factors that you have to investigate before picking a side as well. I did not do this when picking censorship as my topic, I just choose whichever side I could support and back with evidence better. This essay taught me to research your topics and see if you can support them with evidence. The research critical analysis was the first essay that I have ever been able to topic to support and analysis, now I know the topic you are research is important because you may not know if the topic you choose and whether it’s a good topic to analyze.

            The mistakes I have made in this essay was very avoidable, and I will make sure I will bring the knowledge I have learned from the mistakes I’ve made in the RCA to make my writing better in the future. This has been my least strongest Essay and I hope to be able to improve on my abilities to write these essays in the future.