Media censorship should be banned internationally.

Addressing Opponents Main Points 1) Media molds the opinions and views of society. When censorship is applied to a state the government can stop the spread of one idea to destroy the undermining of ideas it does support. My opponent speaks true when he states that the media plays an important role on societies views and opinions. It is also true that censorship can be used for this form of government control of public opinion. I would like to point out that just because censorship has the possibility to be used for such motives does not mean for certain that it will. Propaganda and government lies are not the result of censorship, they are solely reliant on the state itself. If the government decides to be deceptive and try to control the public the is the issue of the government and not censorship. The covering up of the war in the Middle East was not due to any pre-existing law on media censorship, it was the American government giving the press dishonest details of it's motives. Therefore that example was not reliant of the media itself or censoring, it was set into place by the state. I would also like to clarify that there is a difference between censorship and control of the media. Censorship is simply the filtering of media for any intent, not limited to the negative ones. When the government has complete control of the media, every thing produced and denied to be produced is at the discretion of the government. In other words, the government can control what is in the media and what is not in the media but the act of omitting certain things is censorship. 2) Lack of media censorship is important in keeping transparency between the State and the People. If political leaders are aware that what they do might be documented, there would be a less corrupt government. Again, the problem isn't censorship, the problem is government. A state can keep as much secret as it wants. Public statements and announcements are not created by the media, the media simply acts as the medium for it. A lack of censorship does not necessarily mean less corruption. Censorship may possibly be used to cover up corruption but if this is the case it goes back to the government (which in this case is most likely a totalitarian state) being the issue. If the state was democratic it wouldn't be hiding scandals of individual public officials anyways. 3) Keeping information from the public can result in people becoming unaware of what occurs around them. Censorship does have to mean completely omitting information, it can just be stemming ideas to only mediums which are appropriate. Censorship does not have to exist in the form which my opponent is using to prove his point. In my opponents example sexual images are banned which can be slightly detrimental to sexual education. This example is unrealistic though because censorship is at the discretion of the government and it won't go around randomly censoring things just because there is no international law against it especially if it does the opposite of helping them. Just because it can happen does not mean it will. Should we tear off everyones arms because it is possible that the people will go around strangling babies and seals. 4) If censorships were to be enacted it cannot be guaranteed that new ideas will be available to the public. My opponents arguments are redundant to refute. Most of his arguments are built off the fallacy that because something can, it will. Furthermore this claim has little support--because some ideas are non-present does not mean that a culture will become stale and fade. Before many cultures came into contact with each other they existed and grew on their own. There would be no difference between an idea never being introduced and it being completely censored and taken out of the culture. Creative arts would still exist and flourish regardless of censorship. 5) Censorship is mostly used to preserve political idealogies This again goes back to my comment on my opponents previous arguments. I will expand on this whole point my own arguments. Constructive arguments Censorship to this day exists in all societies. My opponent states the censorship can block us from positive exposures but censorship can also stem negative exposures. Sexually explicit and profane content is generally prohibited from being aired on television during a certain time of day. Whats good and whats bad is subjective but there are many ideas that undoubtedly have no positive affect on society. Racism, radical political and religious violence should have no place being aired in our media for impressionable children. Some discretion is need in deciding what content is widely available. Censorship merely let us put ideas where they are appropriate. Seeing as this is a 5-round debate with a hefty 8000 character limit I will build my argument further in the following rounds. It is a very unconvenient time for me to make this post at this time so I shall cut it off here.