Should the government of the United States be able censor mass media? As Americans we have freedom of speech and censorship is oppression against that right. People should be able to express their thoughts freely whether socializing with a group of friends or over mass media.
Censorship by definition, according to Webster's American Dictionary, is "the act or process of suppressing what is controversial." Censorship is used to prevent the youth from being exposed to controversial material. However, it prevents one from truly expressing themselves and violates their freedom of speech, not their freedom of non-controversial speech. .
Some believe that if one sees or hears someone discuss a controversial act on mass media it will influence the audience to commit that controversial act. The argument of why censorship should exist has for the most part been based on this fact alone. Though it has been proven to be true in some cases, the majority of people who see or hear a controversial act committed on mass media do not commit this same controversial act in reaction. The few people who do commit the same controversial act they were exposed to over mass media often have other factors influencing their decision to do so. The Colorado school shootings were mostly blamed on Marilyn Manson for his controversial three-minute music videos involving a school shooting, not the years of abuse the children received from their peers for not participating in their social trends.
It is possible for one's views to be made clearer with controversial material than without it. Nobody can deny that censorship limits the amount of topics, words and visuals one may expose to others. If parents have a problem with their children being exposed to real life, or controversial material, then so be it, though why must censorship exist for everyone? Today's technology allows one to censor their own personal televisions so that they can only access certain stations.