Lately, I've been acquiring a ridiculous amount of knowledge on government use of censorship in Lebanon (#MUN). Today, Ms. King mentioned how The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Beloved have both previously been banned in the U.S. I thought I'd share some things that are currently banned in Lebanon and why. "Puss in Boots" is censored for being "obscene and immoral." For Lebanese audiences, the title was changed to "Cat in Boots." Ironically, I just typed "Puss in Boots" into Google and it's blocked at StM. Nirvana is banned for the reasons of "witchcraft, Satanic." "The Nanny" is also banned. The reason simply being "Jewish."
I would like to point out, however, Lebanon houses countless religiously, politically, and ethnically diverse communities within their borders. The government in Lebanon makes it one of their top priorities not to offend any of the groups. As you can imagine, it's a slippery slope.
And there is today's Lebanese current affairs breakdown.
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4 comments:
I think it's silly that STM bans its students from accessing certain websites. First of all, I have come across blocks MULTIPLE TIMES for websites related solely to my schoolwork that are completely appropriate. Also, hitting a blockage doesn't stop kids from playing games or looking up inappropriate things on their computers. Instead, it makes them search for another similar website or find a way around the blockage. If a student is distracted, blocking a website isn't going to make them focus. Once a distracted student, always a distracted student. Well... at least for that class.
It's almost hilarious that Lebanon says one thing, yet does the complete opposite.
I think STM blocks certain websites for middle school more than high school. But I have to agree, it's really annoying when I try to do research at school for a school-related subject and it won't allow me to access that site. I think telling the students that the administration sees what you look up is more than enough, because honestly what person is going to look up something inappropriate at school knowing the school can see it?
Excessive censorship is kind of pointless, especially for books, unless they were specifically written for lewd purposes. STM's censorship is pretty bad also. Earlier this year the school blocking was bad, but now it's just ridiculous. This was especially annoying when I was studying for the NLE because every time I tried to look up a grammatical construction or special use of something that contained the word cum--and there are a lot because it means with)--I would get blocked. Same thing happened when I tried to look up cleavage furrows for science Olympiad. It's completely pointless too; that kind of annoyance makes the whole censorship pointless because then people will be more likely to get around it with a proxy or something.
When I was doing research on the Amityville Horror for my previous blog post, it took me an extra fifteen minutes because I had to try and find a way around the block. Anything with the word horror in it is blocked. I also think this is a waste of time. I totally understand where the school is coming from though. I just think it is blocking useful things more than it blocks inappropriate things. Like Sam said, even if the block works for its right purpose, people will still look it up on their own time.
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