Ethical Dilemma #8 – Should Violence be Censored?
It’s been a while since we had a good old fashioned Ethical Dilemma debate and for the last few months a topic has been brewing in my mind. I thought I would write it out here and see if any of our fantastic readers can shed some light on this issue. Let me set the stage.
Here in South Australia we are about to have a State election. One of the big issues of the campaign is that the current Attorney General has used his powers to remove an R18 rating from the gaming industry as a means of censoring violent video games. The Attorney General has come under fire for this move as many groups (gamers, libertarians, etc.) believe that no censorship is acceptable, even if it is done with the motivation to protect children from bad images. Many people are worried that there is an increasing trend in Australia towards censorship; indeed the Federal Government is planning to censor the internet (with Google’s help) by the end of the year.
Here is the dilemma:
The politicians promise us that only extremely disturbing things will be filtered from the net. But still people are worried. Could it be that soon some movies will be deemed too violent or inappropriate for us to view. What about news that perhaps the Government doesn’t agree with? Is it right to censor video games from adults in order to protect children?
I would love to hear your opinions on the matter. South Australia has made world news for this and other recent censorship issues and I would be very interested to hear whether the world at large thinks this is a good idea.
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