Censorship suppresses expression. All manner of media - speech, film, printed matter, music, Internet and so on - can be censored. Censorship is usually exercised by governments or controlling bodies (perhaps parents at the household level) to protect people from exposure to material that is objectional, harmful, sensitive or simply questionable.
Censorship is often controversial since it is the anti-thesis to free-speech, and people knowing the truth, or at least seeing another side of the matter. But there are some benefits of censorship. What are these?
1. Military protection. Governments censor military information and restrict the details of conflicts, battles, military strategies and so on that are made public knowledge. This censorship is tactically beneficial and will ensure a nation's defense system is most effective. It would be fatal to make public information that would jeopardize the lives of military personnel or which would undermine the whole plan of defense for a nation. While military bodies need to be accountable to a nation, there are benefits to censoring military details from a nation.
2. Protecting children. Censorship can be useful to protect children from harmful or unwanted materials that could jeopardize their healthy development. Censoring the Internet is one of the most common forms of censorship involving "filtering" the content that children can access, enforcing the censorship through special web-browsers that are designed to block out pornography, R-rated violence, illegal pharmaceutical sites and so on. On-line communication can even be monitored and censored to protect children from predators and there are demonstrated benefits in keeping children safe and healthy through censoring.
3. Personal privacy. Censorship can sometimes ensure personal privacy is maintained, for example, when an individual becomes the focus of unwanted public attention and enters the media. Television companies will often censor images of accused persons, especially minors, in order to protect their personal privacy. The public do not need to see the face and this is often censored, blocked out by various means. Individuals can also request that they are "censored" from public directories, telephone listings, Google map images and so on to ensure that their personal privacy is protected.
4. Safety controls. Sometimes censorship is used by controlling authorities to prevent mass panic, and the ensuing problems that could result from that, which could harm people unnecessarily. Information is not released in order to help maintain law and order. For example, a bomb threat is received and a building calmly and effectively evacuated, without all the details being broadcast. If those details were known they may cause panic, wider hysteria or otherwise create harm when none would exist if the information was not published.
While censorship is controversial and must be used with care, there are situations where there are benefits to it.
