Attacks on the Press

Introduction: The New Face of Censorship

By Joel Simon

In the days when news was printed on paper, censorship was a crude practice involving government officials with black pens, the seizure of printing presses and raids on newsrooms. The complexity and centralization of broadcasting also made radio and television vulnerable to censorship even when the governments didn’t exercise direct control of the airwaves. After all, frequencies can be withheld; equipment can be confiscated; media owners can be pressured.

New information technologies—the global, interconnected internet; ubiquitous social media platforms; smartphones with cameras—were supposed to make censorship obsolete. Instead, they have just made it more complicated.

Does anyone still ...