April’s Blog ;)

Hey

I had this blog post done before, but I wanted to redo it so I could do a better job and get a better mark on it. I also thought I’d get more “into” it.

So, for one of the ITL videos, there was one created on Terrorism. The two boys that made it had found a picture of George Bush with a huge explosion behind him. They wanted to edit it so that it said “From their point of view [people fighting in wars] who are really the faceless ones?” Or something along those lines. Mr. Fisher, however, censored it so that the edited picture wouldn’t be in the video.

What is censorship?

Censorship is basically someone’s opinion on what’s right and what’s wrong. Censoring something means that you are taking something out so that some people won’t get offended by it. Mr. Fisher took that picture out of the project of George Bush so that some people wouldn’t get offended, or George Bush himself.

Why are things censored?

Things are censored so that people don’t get offended by certain things. When people are offended by something they see, often that thing is edited and changed so that people aren’t offended anymore and they are satisfied.

Some things that have been censored are:

A few songs by the Rolling Stones had been censored.

“Chinese censors restricted the veteran rock star group the Rolling Stones from performing five songs when they made their debut in mainland China on 8 April 2006. Rolling Stones’ lead singer Mick Jagger stated at a press conference in Shanghai that in his opinion this was “not a big deal”. While taking questions at a press conference in Shanghai, Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger said that Chinese authorities had asked the band to exclude certain songs from their concert - and that it didn’t worry him.”

The songs that had been censored were Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, Beast Of Burden, Let’s Spend The Night Together, and Rough Justice.

I had also found a blog post that someone had written about commercials being censored:

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that commercials have become the latest target by those looking to keep mature rated titles out of the hands of children. After all, if children never hear about these “M” rated titles, they’re obviously not going purchase them. Certain organizations have taken these thoughts to heart, and have tried to have ads for “M” rated banned from public transit systems.”

To view the post, click here.  

Do you think there are “good” reasons to censor some material?

I do think there are good reasons to censor some material. If people are going to get offended by some material, then maybe you should consider changing or editing the material so that no one gets offended but it’s still just as effective. Imagine someone produced something that really offends you. Wouldn’t you want them to change it so that you can stand up for what you believe in? I think most people would. If something offends someone, obviously they’re going to say something about it. So I think it’s a good idea to censor some material so no one gets offended. It’s not right to them.

Do you think I [Mr. Fisher] was right in censoring the terrorism video?

I think a lot of people would’ve gotten offended by it. Everyone who believes in George Bush would think it is wrong, and George Bush - if he ever saw it, I’d say he’d get a bit offended. But…try being him for a day. He’s a busy guy…he’s ruling a whole country and he’s only making the decisions he thinks is best. He also has advisors who help him with the decisions, so it’s not all his doing. I’m not saying I agree with everything he does, but I think it would be hard to make decisions for a whole country like he does so maybe people shouldn’t be as rough on him as I know a lot of people are. I think Mr. Fisher was right in censoring this video. I know if I was George Bush I would be offended, and everyone who likes him and agrees with his decisions would be very offended. I think Mr. Fisher was right in doing this. The video turned out just as effective, and saved a lot of offense for people by taking out the picture.

To read Mr. Fisher’s Remote Access Blog, click here. This is where he wrote about the censored video.

April