Censorship

Relevant Articles
Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this
right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either
alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive
and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers.
Article 20.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
 What is Censorship?
Vague
Affront to individuals freedom
Violation of our right to know, think
and express
Tool of states repression
 Types of Censorship
Self/Autonomous
Social
Legal
Extra-legal
Voluntary
Sub-terranean
Paul O Higgins
All Censorship is political censorship.

Seagle
 Some legislations
Obscene Publication Act (1857)
(1959, 64)
Official Secrets Act (1889) (1911, 20,
39)
Observation I
Freedom of Speech
 Function of Freedom of
Speech
Participation
Pursuit of Political Truth
Majority rule
Restraint on tyranny and corruption
Stability

Rodney Smolla
Observation II
Freedom of Information
 RTI in India
(RTI Act) was passed byParliamenton 11 May 2005.
It replaced the erstwhile Freedom of information Act, 2002.
The Supreme Court of India had, in several Judgments prior
to enactment of both Acts, interpreted Indian Constitution to
read Right to Information as the Fundamental Right as
embodied in Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression and
also in Right to Life
Public Information Officer responsibility is to ensure that
information requested is disclosed to the petitioner within 30
days or within 48 hours in case of information concerning the
life or liberty of a person.
Tamil Nadu(1997), Goa(1997), Rajasthan(2000),
Karnataka(2000),Delhi(2001), Maharashtra (2002)
 Two Cases
Sister Teresa (Columbia)
Sufragios invitation to your own funeral

John Thomas Scopesin Tennessee was

charged on May 5, 1925 for
violatingButler Act. He was tried in a case
known as theScopes Trial where he was
found guilty and fined $100.
Inherit the Wind.
Two Arguments
Pornography and Obscenity
 Pornography definition(s)
"I can't define pornography, but I know
it when I see it."
Justice Stewart inJacobellis v. Ohio378 US 184
(1964).

"pornography" - writing about

prostitutes

Pornography is any material (either

pictures or words) that issexually
 Pornography definition(s)
Pornography is sexually explicit
material (verbal or pictorial) that
isprimarilydesigned to produce sexual
arousal in viewers.

Pornography is sexually explicit

material designed to produce sexual
arousal in consumersthat is badin a
certain way.
 Pornography definition(s)
It might be thatall and onlysexually explicit
material is bad in a certain way (e.g.,
obscene): in which case, "pornography" will
refer to all and only the class of sexually
explicit materials.

Many contemporary feminist definitions define

"pornography" as sexually explicit material
that depicts women's subordination in such a
way as toendorsethat subordination.
 Pornography definition(s)
sexually explicit material that does not
subordinate women will count as
harmless "erotica".

Pornography is sexually explicit

&objectionable.
 Objections against
Pornography
According to Conservatives,
Sexually explicit content is obscene
and morally corrupting .
It is an affront to decent family and
religious values .
It is also against community standards
of morality and decency - legal
moralism.
 Objections against
Pornography
Sexually explicit material that
subordinates women Feminists
Encourages perversion
Child pornography
Human trafficking
Force against will
Pornography is exploitation and
oppression of women.
 Objections against
Pornography
It appeals to "prurient interests".
It depicts women being coerced,
abused, dominated or degraded.
 Dworkin and Mackinnon
(i) women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities;
or
(ii) women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy humiliation or pain
(iii)women are presented as sexual objects experiencing sexual pleasure in rape,
incest or other sexual assault
(iv)women are presented as sexual objects tied up, cut up or mutilated or bruised
or physically hurt
(v) women are presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility,
or display
(vi)women's body parts including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or
buttocks are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts
(vii)women are presented being penetrated by objects or animals
women are presented in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, injury, torture,
(viii)
shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes
these conditions sexual.
Also, sexually explicit material that treats men, children or transsexuals in
sexually dehumanising or subordinating ways also counts as pornography.
 Objections continued
Pornography is a public institution of
sexual slavery, trafficking in vulnerable
women and children, and profiting from
their suffering and subjugation.
It incites sexual violence.
It is false advertising about women and
sexuality.
 Empirically speaking
No reputable study has concluded that
pornography is a significant cause of sexual
crime.
Consumption of pornography may, on its own,
be neither necessary nor sufficient for violent
sexual crime.
There is considerable disagreement, among
social science researchers as well as liberal and
feminist philosophers, about whether
pornography is a cause of violent sexual crime.
The other side of the story!
Many liberal defenders of pornography
continue to view censorship as
unjustified.
There would be no legitimate sense in
which the publication and voluntary
private consumption of pornography
violate women's civil rights.
 Fallacy of
Government could forbid the graphic or
visceral or emotionally charged expression of
any opinion that might reasonably offend a
disadvantaged group. It could outlaw
performances ofThe Merchant of Venice, or
films about professional women who neglect
their children, or caricatures or parodies of
homosexuals in nightclub routines. Dworkin's
concern is a kind of logical slippery slope
objection that that he takes to constitute
areductioof MacKinnon's view.
 Argument from Analogy
Pornography maysexualisewomen's
inequality, but advertising and
romance novels
plausiblyglamoriseandromanticizeit
respectively; and hence may
celebrate, authorize and legitimise
women's inequality in the same way as
pornography.

Cocks 1989, Coward 1984, Valverde 1985, Kappeler

1986, Skipper 1993
Traditional Feminist
 Another Argument
The principle is that mentally
competent adults must not be
prevented from expressing their own
convictions, or from indulging their
own private tastes, simply on the
grounds that, in the opinion of others,
those convictions or tastes are
mistaken, offensive or unworthy.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it. Voltaire
Three arguments of Liberals
Firstly, on the grounds offreedom of speech or expression,
which protects the freedom of individuals (in this case,
pornographers) to express their opinions and to communicate
those opinions to others, however mistaken, disagreeable or
offensive others may find them.

Secondly, liberals have defended a right to pornography on the

grounds of a right toprivacy(or moral independence, as one
prominent liberal defender of pornography calls it), which
protects a sphere of private activity.

Neither the expression of pornographic opinions, nor the

indulging of a private taste for pornography, causes significant
harm to others.
 In democracy
People must have the right to choose.
People must decide.
 The middle path
Non-consenting adults
Child porn
Rapes
Public places
Violent pornography is degrading
(Coercion of
women/men/children/animals )
 Some points
The difficulties involved in formulating a
legal definition of pornography that will be
sufficiently precise to minimize the danger
that censorship laws targeting pornography
will be used (intentionally or
unintentionally) to censor other unpopular
material, including valuable literary, artistic
and political works.
Moreover, the producers know how to get
away with that
 Feminist arguments against
Legislations
Some feminists argue that
pornography is an important form of
sexual expression that does not harm
women, and may even benefit them by
liberating women and women's
sexuality from the oppressive shackles
of tradition and sexual conservatism.
McElroys argument
Some legislations
A point to ponder upon
Why we need censorship?
To what extent we need it?