Political censorship

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Political censorship exists when a government conceals information from its citizens. Basically, the logic is that if the people don’t have enough information, they won’t be able to ‘revolt’ or spread slander about the government or political party in charge. It is also the suppression of views that are contrary to those of the government in power. The government has the power of the army and the secret police, which results in the fact that thousands of journalists, authors and editors of any kind have died or lost their careers at the hands of a vicious political hierarchy. Most democracies condemn political censorship, but some privately endorse it.

The word censorship comes from the Latin word censor, the job of two Romans whose duty was to supervise public behaviour and morals, hence 'censoring' the way people acted back then.

[edit] Political censorship in practice

Political censorship is one of the most practiced and influential forms of censorship. An example of one of the countries that practice it is China, with their infamous internet monitoring. China employs some 30,000 'Internet police' to monitor the internet and popular search engines like Google and Yahoo. Censorship in Britain altered with the introduction of copyright laws. With this, the Crown had permission to license publishing. Without government consent, publishing was not allowed.

The country that has come up with the most repressive tactics in modern times to prevent the expression of views is Romania, under the Ceauşescu regime. The state had place incredible controls on tools of mass communication like typewriters, photocopiers and even typewriter ribbons. One had to have special permission from the government to possess a typewriter or any other of the tools of that nature. The Ministry kept tabs on whoever owned a typewriter and whoever produced them. The regime was overthrown around Christmas 1989.

South Africa also has a way to keep its citizens quiet: according to a law passed in 1950, the government had the power to 'ban' people who had expressed views opposed to the government in power. Once the banning order is given, the victim cannot be quoted in any way, whether in newspapers, books, radio or television.