Blog #5: Censorship

 Growing up in the United States we are taught about the wars and conflict that  shaped our country. Through United States history classes and world history lectures, we understand that lives lost are honored to bring peace. But what we do not often realize is that the United States still maintains military operations around the world. If we were really at peace, would our own country need to do this? Why is much of the general population uninformed about this? 

This is because it is censored from our media, which blocks the truth from being spread throughout our typical news outlets. Yet the website Anti-War gives the truth of the conflict going on throughout other countries. This website contains hundreds of articles, ranging from stories inside of our own US military to the Israeli government capturing Palistian children. It is all information that would cause distress if it were to be public knowledge, and therefore it is censored by our government. It is clear that various search engines and online databases are connected with the government, which is why censoring has become more clearly evident. One of the ways young adults can see censorship within their everyday lives is within the TikTok app. TikTok has an ability to put videos “under review” before they are even uploaded. In all honesty, it sounds similar to prior restraint. TikTok is continuously getting more strict with their guidelines, even removing videos where users' outfits do not seem appropriate enough, and thus flagging them for nudity. 

In all, it is very evident that there are significant amounts of censorship throughout our heavily-consumed world of technology today, whether it is a simple 30 second video or an article on a violent invasion in Ukraine. The government is restraining the First Amendment by removing these stories, and especially the freedoms of speech and press.  If this is our world today, which is constantly increasing in censorship, I am greatly concerned to see our world in 20 years.