Is censorship neccessary?

Censorship refers to the process whereby the media or any other authority examines films, publications or letters, any form of media to suppress objectionable content, such as that of explicit, obscene, pornographic, or racially or politically sensitive issues, as they might cause unrest and negative effects on society, especially if these were exposed through the media or press. It is deemed neccessary for the prevention of conflict between groups of people, uprisings or even war, or tensions among the country, to safeguard government and national interests, protecting the young and weak-minded from harmful influences, as well as ensuring right messages get across to the minds of people.
Take a racially blended country such as singapore for instance, the small island comprises chinese, indians, malays as well as less significant groups such as eurasians or indonesians.
Such a nation without proper racial harmony preservation resembles a cauldron ready to implode any minute, as tensions build up to lead to conflicts among citizens, leading to lack of peace and security within singapore. Unfortunately, racial prejudices do occur, though not rampant in singapore, but nevertheless leads to racial strife among small parties. The government reacts appropriately by censoring incidents of such conflicts, which would spark off national racial conflicts off much larger proportions, further endangering the lives and property of the citizens. Censorship in this case acts like a shield in a forest that prevents fire from spreading, protecting security interests of people by sieving out racially sensitive issues or incidents, henceforth it is an effective measure to promote racial harmony.
The childhood of a person is when it acts most like a sponge, whereby the values and images he sees make a significant impact on his later life. This usually detemines his personality, apart from the genes of his parents, as well as his character and actions. Overexposure of explicitly violent and sexually-oriented images through the media might well persuade the young that all these are part and parcel of life, and from this spawns promiscuous activity, increased crime rate or murder, or even traumatisation due to blood and gore images from movies like SAW or even 300. Such symptoms of lack of censorship leads to social problems in society, such as the threatening of law and national security from increased crime rate, additionally changing the face of society with the wide influence of media, citizens become immoral, violent, and have little principles and values to speak of. Censorship prevents this by erecting a barrier between the weak-minded and young away from explicit images, texts and videos, protecting them from harmful influences on the mind.
Every government should have the best interests of the people at heart. Therefore, it is essential that they bring the correct political, social messages across to the people via the media. Censorship of external influences or media prevents ideas that are not in line with the government's plans for the people from reaching the latter, henceforth for the benefit of the people as well as by emphasizing the correct messages, the country, society and economy for functioning efficiently. For instance, by censoring smoking commercials, correct messages of health are brought across, with its absence, by restricting wrong messages of health.
On the other hand, censorship may be unneccessary in certain aspects of people's lives, or even to the extent of being detterent to the latter. Such instances include the lack of exposure retarding the growth of youngsters, as well as the need to practise self-censorship, both of which revolves about the need to have matured people in our society.
For instance, many people relate exposure to growth, knowledge and experience. For example, the more one travels, the more knowledge and experience one gathers, the more matured and learned one becomes, the more the growth. It is true to an extent that people need to be exposed to something in order to learn about it. Additionally, however, people are reckoned mature enough to practise self-censorship via religions like christianity, whereby the 'see no evil, hear no evil' saying is used to keep a person 'pure and untainted', or simply by the determination of one's mind to keep away from such influences.
Even so, i feel that censorship is needed nevertheless. We cannot assume all people as rational or mature people and henceforth, censorship is implemented to ensure the safety and security of all by protecting them against the harmful influences of the media, such as childen or the intellectually disabled.

TVBS media scandal

I refer to the article" TVBS scandal points to credibility problems in Taiwan's media industry".
People are reliant on the media to obtain information, news about their many aspects of life such as weather, entertainment and current affairs. Sad to say for Taiwan, their media is an unreliable source of information, as they forsake their true purpose of existence, to serve the public by reporting accurate news, for ratings, hece they cook up news just so people tune it, regardless of the effects generated due to the fabricated lies. For instance, in this case, a TVBS journalist had filmed a heavily armed gangster making death threats to a rival mob boss, which was obviously an act just to boost ratings, with the fake guns being used and the reluctance to acknowledge the source of the video. This has led to the mobilisation of the police force to investigate the mater, as well as affected people negatively all over the country. This may reflect upon the poor state of Taiwan security, as gangsters have access to firearms, hence putting many at risk, worrying them. The time of the police force has also been compromised due to the investigation, whereby they could have contributed more towards the security of Taiwan. Other such instances include when they falsely reported that duck slaughterhouses made used of asphalt to unfeather ducks, leading to a decline in duck sales, affecting the suppliers and sellers as they had made losses due to the drop in demand.
In my opinion, the media is a powerful tool to influence the minds of the citizens as it is the link between what is happening and what we know as it aims to inform accurately so that we can respond appropriately to the situation, such as for the weather reports and stock market statistics. Hence when inaccurate information is broadcasted, people tend to react to the situations which henceforth are pointless or self-destructive. What aggravates the matter is that since the media reaches out to the masses of Taiwan, the reactions generated will produce significant impacts on the various aspects of the contry. For instance, the boycott of ducks has led to the loss of money in the poultry industry, in turn affecting the whole economy adversely, and hence the many people it consists of. Therefore, i feel that the media should be a responsible and focused media towards the people and the aim of its existence, to provide accurate news, in order to avoid large-scale unneccesary responses to false reports, as well as to inform them for their benefit.
The drop in Taiwan's media standards is due to many reasons such as the cutting of costs in news reporting, and fierce competition in the field of the latter. The extent to which the media's standards have plummeted can be gauged by the lack of trust entrusted in the media itself, such as that only 1% of majo business stakeholder groups rely and trust the media and that media watchdogs warn of an uprising crisis. From cutting corners and peer pressure spawns unethical and underhand means to achieve higher ratings so as to outdo other news reporting stations, which compromises the benefits and in turn affects negatively the citizens they should serve. The government can play a part in preventing this by merging more news stations into 1 corporation so as to eliminate competition in the field, and increasing the budget allocated to the reporting media so that they do not cut costs to compromise reporting standards.