Why We Need to End Social Media Censorship

Over the course of several years, social media has grown by leaps and bounds. Millions of people worldwide use social media to communicate with other people. We use these sites on a daily basis. Some people can’t get through the day without using social media. Most websites have links to please sites, and we treat them as second nature.

This form of communication is here to stay. We all like going on these sites and discussing issues with other people. Often, these sites are the first places that we get news stories. We go there to read up on the latest celebrity gossip, weather, Sports, and other things that are going on in our world. One of the main problems with social media now is that censorship is starting to take hold of these sites. Here is why we need to end social media censorship and why it is such a harmful thing.

Sites are Free to Post What They Want

First off, I would like to say that social media sites can post whatever they want. The owners of the site can decide the material that they want to put on their site. There really is nothing that we can do as individuals to stop a social media site from censoring content. On the other hand, it doesn’t make this right.

If sites are going to censor content, then perhaps in the future, they will be censoring content that you wanted to post, not just what someone else is posting. This puts us on a slippery slope. While am I perfectly fine with sites deleting in censoring content that is of a hateful nature a lot of the content that is being censored and removed is not hateful at all. This content just happens to be a different opinion.

We Need Discussion

How are we going to work through the issues of the day if we don’t talk about them? We need discussion and dialogue if we hope to make progress in this world. When you censor someone’s opinion that leads to anger and resentment. You don’t solve the problem at hand, you make it worse.

We have to be willing to discuss issues that we might not agree with. Only with proper discussion can we work through the issue in a positive way. We used to have a saying called agree to disagree. It appears that this is no longer relevant in today’s society. Social media sites seem to be willing to only listen to one side of the argument. When someone posts something that is against the argument in question, the content is deleted.

You don’t have to agree with the content that someone is posting. You may have an opinion that that is vastly different from the person that is posting. You do, however, have to have a willingness to listen to the other person. Only by understanding the entire topic at hand can we hope it to work through issues. If we censor the other side of the argument, we’re not working on the issue. All we are doing is burying your head in the sand like a bunch of ostriches and expecting the other opinions to go away.

Communication is Vital

Communication in our society is vital to having a healthy world. We have many problems in this world that we need to address. If we’re not willing to sit down and communicate with each other, where are we going to end up? Censorship always ends down a dark path. There is nothing positive that can come from censorship, as we’ve seen from history.

If someone has a different opinion than you and you close off their avenue of communication, this is a dangerous precedent. People deserve the right to be heard. It doesn’t matter whether or not you agree with what they say. You should be willing to even communicate with them and to understand the issue.

I’m someone that believes in both sides of the argument. I often don’t agree with one side of the argument. I still want to listen and communicate with the other person to figure out why they feel the way they do. Perhaps I can learn something by listening to their argument. At the end of the day, we can agree to disagree.

Censorship destroys positive communication. It offers nothing positive, and it always leads to a place good we don’t want to go. Our opinions matter, they should be heard, and we should not censor content. We should allow people to express those opinions.

End Censorship Now

Sometime in the future, you may have an opinion and want to express it. If we continue down the path of censorship, you may not be able to express that opinion. You may be shocked when this happens, but it has happened in the future. You may think that your opinion is valuable, but it has been censored. You no longer have the right to express your opinions. You will be silenced like other people have been silenced.

You’ll be left wondering what has happened. You don’t deserve to be silenced. No one deserves to be silenced. We must sit down together and discuss issues. We must do this as adults as this is what adults do. If we don’t talk, then there is nothing left. That void will be filled with darkness, and it’s a path I don’t want to see us go down.