Freedom of speech and information is the single most important aspect of a well-functioning democracy.
Our founding fathers understood this fact in 1789 when they passed the Bill of Rights through Congress. In fact, the words “freedom of speech” or “of the press” are in the very first amendment of the bill.
However, most censorship occurring today is done by the private sector and news stations – not by the government. News sources today have lost their credibility as they either omit facts in order to push their agenda or they simply publish fake news in order to get “clicks.”
To me, this is an unfortunate outcome of our advancing technology. Today, anyone with an iPhone can falsify information and then spread it extremely quickly. On a larger scale, the conglomerate news sources have blatantly removed any ideas, posts or people who do not align with their political agendas.
This action of censorship is a threat to our democracy.
I believe citizens and politicians should be free to use their voice on media platforms.
When a platform does employ censorship, the platform is no longer trustworthy or reputable.
News stations have the ability to make censorship even more extreme because unlike a social media app, news stations have complete control over their stories. I believe that censorship in our media is something that will unfortunately never go away. The media machine will always do what is best for its pockets.
At the end of the day, our social media apps and news stations are businesses – and the most important thing to business is profit. Therefore, whenever someone threatens the media machine’s income, they will censor and block the threat.
Censorship damages our democracy and should be swiftly mitigated.
Thankfully, censorship is notable absent in our local news source, The Boerne Star. The Boerne Star prides itself on its factual information and trusted sources – not on its business profit.
This column was written by Luke Garver, who is a senior at Champion High School. Garver will be attending West Point after graduating later this month.
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