Poll: What would happen if there was no censorship?

[Matilda Ward]

What I mean to say is what would happen if there was no censorship of any medium at all. Television, movies, books, games, all have some form of censorship and some form of censorship has always existed throughout history but what if there was a world or a place without censorship? What would happen? How do you think this would affect people? Please tell me escapist.

 

[tippy2k2]

Life would be a lot more ****ing inte....

Wait...I can't say ****? ****ing great, just ****ing great. You know, you're lucky you're good at ****ing my **** or I'd never put up with this. You know what I'm talking about....***** lubed up toothpaste in my ***** ****** cherry ***** Episcopalian ****** extension cord **** wetness ***** with a parking ticket...

Alright, lame joke done.

In today's world, I don't think it would make any difference. The primary reason (I can think of) would be keeping the children safe (and won't someone pleeeeease think of the children!). However, everything boobs and swearing related on TV can easily be accessed now via the interwebs. Besides, once it's no longer taboo, I think interest in pushing the envelope would die and no one would bat an eyelid at it after a while.

Although there will probably be more porn on TV. Everyone loves porn!

 

[Thaluikhain]

Endless hordes of people would think it's hilarious to yell fire in crowded theatres.

I'm thinking TV would get really bad really quickly. You'd have ads for, say, McDonalds which would just be naked women with golden Ms painted on their genitals.

A lot of people go looking for bomb making instructions, and more people try building one.

Eventually things would settle down and society would adapt, but in a very different form.

 

[FalloutJack]

To be honest, things would be fucked up for a while, but then they'd reach their stability and plateau out because it would lose its strength and need after a while. Uhh, remember the South Park episode about the cursed words? Yeah, after a while this shit wouldn't even MATTER and the FCC would have to disband.

 

[Esotera]

You'd have the internet. The only type of censorship that is effective on there is self-censorship - everything else will still find a way to be online, even if it gets driven deep underground to the darknet.

If there was no censorship in other media, I imagine it'd be pretty much the same as it currently is, as their objective is still to sell as many things as possible. Maybe a few things would start being produced for shock value alone.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I'm pretty sure censorship in some forms includes quality control right? Because you'd get really crappy stuff otherwise.

 

[FalloutJack]

You'd have the internet.

Good thought, but I think it would be sans trolls, but obvious reasons. Like...they'd be shot in the streets.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Two things would happen-

Every children will be alot more toughen up (wheather this is good or bad is up to you). I mean I read that US/ UK kids get censor cartoons like e.g. Battle of the Planet while the kids in Asia get it uncensor. I guess this is true especially when you compared certain shows to each others.

The uploader/ broadcast etc would be alot more strict showing the unceneor content e.g. the film Sanke on the Plant was broadcast at 8pm were the swearing was edited out. Without the censorship they would had broadcast it at 11 or midnight so that the children would of been asleep by then.

 

[Hero of Lime]

All I know is that every advertisement would use sex appeal in the most gratuitous fashion. Honestly, I don't mind some things being censored, if they can appear to be harmful. I feel like people care too much when things are censored, it won't kill you especially since we have the internet where you can see any crazy thing you want.

 

[Something Amyss]

No censorship means no pants!

Every children will be alot more toughen up (wheather this is good or bad is up to you). I mean I read that US/ UK kids get censor cartoons like e.g. Battle of the Planet while the kids in Asia get it uncensor. I guess this is true especially when you compared certain shows to each others.

Except you don't get tougher kids in countries where there's less censorship.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Only replace 'dicks' with everything.

I think the internet has proven that 'freedom of expression' will be abused to fuck and back but this will be without borders and corporate driven.

Some censorship (like porn and advertising) is good, its just that drawing the line at where, when, and who gets to see it is the real tricky question.

 

[babinro]

I stand firm with my opinion that simply I don't know.

We already live in a world where sexualized woman are used to sell funeral services. We already have 10 year olds playing games like GTA5 where part of the experience could involve paying a hooker to have sex then killing her to get your money back. Or simply going on a rampage because it's fun.

Why would anything really change if we had naked barely legal teenage woman selling us candy?

I suspect the only real change is that people would become desensitized to sex and violence at a much younger age. The impact on society would probably be negligible. I have a hard time thinking anything bad could happen when I already believe that violence/sex in video games, tv and music aren't harmful to society.

 

[zerragonoss]

I don't think much would change most of the modern censorship is companies doing to themselves not the government. media would not change you would get a few of the public stations doing something crass just to do cultural backlash would happen they would go back to censoring themselves.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

It probably wouldn't be that different. People self censor all the time. If a show demands foul language and nudity, then it will be on Showtime instead of ABC. I suppose there might be more hardcore sex, but even that is almost too distracting to put in any regular work of fiction.

 

[jesse220]

I think the only thing that needs censoring is something that's potentially harmful. E.g. Hate inciting, explosives recipe, Miley Cyrus.

 

[Suave Charlie]

We already live in a world where sexualized woman are used to sell funeral services. We already have 10 year olds playing games like GTA5 where part of the experience could involve paying a hooker to have sex then killing her to get your money back. Or simply going on a rampage because it's fun.

First time I got into a GTA Online game the first words I heard were from a clearly sub 18 kid telling someone to fuck off.

Oh internet and shitty parents..

 

[Fox12]

No. The marketplace and consumer would decide what is appropriate. As long as no ones rights are being infringed, who cares. Parents can decide what is appropriate for their kids. The only form of "censorship" I would consider appropriate, if you can even call it that, would be a system where we make sure nobodies rights are being infringed. In other words, no pedophilia, no snuff films, ect. However, I don't really consider that censorship anyway, just the law doing what it's supposed to.

 

[Matilda Ward]

I don't know, but we can look at examples around the world and get some ideas, because certain countries censor things in different ways and yet excepting extreme examples like Saudi Arabia most modern countries are culturally fairly similar. Or at least, the big cultural mores are still fairly similar.

Take for example, Japan. I don't know the exact censorship laws, but there doesn't seem to be the same restrictions on nudity that there is in the US. It's not uncommon for me to be browsing at a bookstore and just randomly discover I've blundered into the soft-core porn comic section. Video stores usually section off explicit pornography but I wonder if that's due to a "gentleman's agreement" between video sellers and the public, and not an actual law. The only law I really know about is the one that requires pixellation of genitals (even in mainstram pornography), and that was one imposed on Japan by the US. Violence is also not as strictly censored as in the US, though drug use is far more heavily censored.

I don't believe these differences between US and Japanese censorship really have much of an effect on our cultures. Japanese children can easily get access to nudie magazines (and yes, Japan still has these. Despite the Internet.) It really does seem like Japanese children self-censor, they don't take interest in material that isn't meant for them because it's not exciting, as it's no longer taboo.

The profanity is a different issue because the language we're immersed in can influence the language we use, but unfortunately swearing in Japanese is such a completely different animal (in a grossly over-simplified nutshell, they don't have that many curse words. Instead they just say regular, ordinary words more sloppily and use ruder pronouns when they curse) that I'm not sure it's worth comparing the effect of Japanese cursing on their culture. I'm not strictly speaking opposed to children cursing, but I do support any measure that fights the American tendency to just pepper everything we say with "shit", "ass", and "fuck" rather than curse creatively.

Yeah Japanese people don't really mind nudity that much but they are very conscientious about the way something is spoken (P.S. They have 3 different verb forms all depending on the rank of the person you are talking to). A Japanese friend of mine couldn't understand why her boyfriend swore so casually in front of her and she was really offended until I explained to her that when people swear casually in front of you in Australia it means that they have a familiarity with you and don't need to bother polishing up their language. I am just curious about the issue of censorship because in Australia, especially in the state of Queensland everyone is calling it 'the nanny state', the government has thrown heaps of money into children's school by taking the money out of universities, everything seems to be centred around children and how much information they should know, not what they can easily garner from the internet.