Censorship
Censorship is the practice of suppressing information or the freedom of expression especially today in the mass media and by leftist politicians.
History
In earlier centuries there was de facto censorship because people could not read or did not understand Latin. Martin Luther changed this by translating the Bible into German. The spread of literacy in the Nineteenth Century meant that there were more books but publishing had financial barriers to entry which confined it to an elite.
Censorship is a practice which was under state control in the Soviet empire. It is also widely practised in the West. These days Pravda is able to be more open. One application in national newspapers is choosing the stories that make a point and suppressing others. Emphasizing murders where white people are accused of murdering blacks while suppressing cases where blacks or Hispanics are the perpetrators can serve to create the impression that white men are much more likely than blacks or Hispanics to be criminals. This misleads people while being factual.
Censorship is normally part of a wider agenda which advances various causes. If one newspaper takes a line on some issue it can be countered by other newspapers putting different positions. If all newspapers and other media operations follow the same line it is much more difficult to find the truth.
The media consensus has been disturbed by the birth of the Internet. Now anyone can become a publisher if they have a computer and a connection to the Net. The number of actual publishers has increased enormously.
Cases of Censorship
Conrad Black owned the Jerusalem Post which is published in Israel. He banned articles written by Gwynne Dyer in the Post and numerous papers in Canada. Doctor Dyer is a Canadian and military historian who served before the mast. Black is in prison for thieving. He got six and a half years for major fraud. When Black went to prison the Asper family continued the ban. Aspers are Jews who own Canwest Global, a large main stream media company.
The Catholic Church at one time had its Index of Prohibited Books, or simply "Index". This list formed the second and larger part of the codex entitled "Index librorum prohibitorum", which contained the entire ecclesiastical legislation relating to books. Catholics were not allowed to read them. Possessing a Bible in some tongue other than Latin was punishable by death.
