Tencent's Art Censorship: A Dystopian World

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Imagine a world where the average person lives in fear of expressing themselves. Everything from art to the news they read is constantly scrutinized to be edited to what their government decides is right. They cannot read the books they wish because other vocal minorities deem them to be offensive and politically incorrect. Their government even goes as far as to decide what is and isn’t allowed to be consumed by the country. Censorship creates this dystopian world where freedom of speech and thought is not an inherent right of the people but only for those in power.
Censorship is the act of examining literature, media, etc and omitting the parts that people find offensive, politically incorrect, or unacceptable. Censorship occurs whenever …show more content…

League of Legends, one of the biggest online games in the world is owned by company Riot Games, which is a subsidiary of a Chinese company called Tencent. Tencent enforces all of China’s censorship rules on League of Legends including the removal of nearly all alcoholic themes in the game, the iconic Grave’s cigar (Graves being one of the playable characters), and all depictions of undeath including flesh, skeletons, and blood. League of Legend’s art censorship has extended to all regions that currently host the game. Tencent’s art censorship hinders the artistic freedom that game developers have and basically says “you are not allowed to draw what you want only, what we deem to be acceptable.” Another example of modern day censorship is China’s censorship of any mention of the Panama Papers from all their media and online websites. The Panama Papers are a 2.6 terabyte document which was leaked from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm, containing …show more content…

when Homer’s “the Odyssey” was challenged by Plato, the Philosopher, for corrupting the youth of Greece. To this day, books are still being banned with the excuse of them causing harm to young people all across the country. “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” by Sherman Alexie, is one of the most challenged books of the 21st century and has been banned from many small communities and schools throughout the states. Banning this book is a fallacious attempt at protecting the youth. The censorship of this book is like the Prohibition in the United States. Prohibition was the act of prohibiting people from manufacturing, selling, storing, and consuming alcohol. Prohibition was first established to reduce crime and to protect people from alcoholism. The US government soon came to the conclusion that this was inherently flawed because not everyone who drank alcohol was an alcoholic or was more likely to commit crimes. Alcohol was also very easily obtainable from locations called speakeasies that were illegal nightclubs to make alcohol available to the general public. A reason why censoring Sherman Alexie’s book is comparable to Prohibition is that the book was banned to prevent students from learning about sexual terms, violence, and racism. This logic is flawed because like Prohibition not everyone who reads books about sexual terms or violence becomes a nymphomaniac or a criminal. Also like

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