Next President,

Censorship in American media is very blatant, and at times it may feel like too much to an average viewer. The fact is there needs to be less control over content, and more freedom to artistic expression.

In Europe, forbes.com says their laws protect children’s privacy, even from their parents. In contrast to America, where parents have many legal authorities over their children. There seems to be lack of attention to the fact that children have the right to freedom of speech, as well as adults. It’s no secret that a big percentage of censorship is aimed at protecting children, but there really is no need for that.

This argument could be thrown at any problem in the U.S., but it is still applicable. Censorship isn’t going to change the way people act. According to cnet.com, There was a case in 2013 involving anti-Semitic tweets from France, and Twitter refusing requests to gather data on those people. The Union of Jewish French Students sued Twitter for $50 million to censor those people, and retrieve their identities. Censoring these hateful people isn’t going to have any effect on the bigger picture, or change the way people think about other cultures. And to to that $50 million was spent just to censor tweets. Money that could be much better spent.

According to reference.com, censorship happens when one individual or group is successful in promoting its ideas while suppressing another. In other words, censoring “offensive” material keeps people from learning the truth. And the people who say this also believe that the government is hiding information coming from other countries, to keep the U.S. from looking weak.

Censorship can also change the meaning of an artistic piece, or news story, and thus censorship is infringing on our First Amendment, the freedom of speech. However, according to Target GD/PI, other people think that censoring media is important in specific situations, like preventing nudity being exposed to a young child, who is not mentally prepared for exposure like that. Or censorship could also be beneficial when certain television programs or movies depict foul language, and again, a young child is not mentally prepared. So it seems as though the main focus and purpose that censorship holds is to protect the kids. However, as stated before, children also bear the right to freedom of speech. It is wrong to expose very young kids to overly violent and inappropriate content, but it is also wrong to deny children any choice in the matter. Censorship can prove to be beneficial at times, but the downfall is often overlooked, and denies children their birth given rights.

Many people live a censored life, and prefer not being exposed to mature content and language. And some people want absolutely no political correctness or restriction of language. But the fact is that not everybody has the same preference, and we need the choice to decide for ourselves, regardless of age or race.

Sincerely,

Angelo Lyons