Which Is Worse? State Censorship Or Corporate Censorship?

Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 11:09 pm. 2 comments

I hardly give any leniency of mine to censorship imposed by the Chinese government, but it didn’t occur to me to write something about censorship in other countries mostly due to the fact that this is not politial blog. However today I take my stand agaisnt censorship done in a democratic country, UK, but with a catch.

The new Manic Street Preachers’ album portaited a battered kid’s face on the cover, and this caused a huge problem for the supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda. Now the albums have been put into a slipcase so that the cover doesn’t show. It’s clear that in this case the censorship is not exercised by the government, but rather corporates in the name of a noble cause. It makes me wonder, as showed in the title, which is worse, state censorship or corporate censorship.

When the government bans or censor something, I am sure that there is way around, be it proxy or illegal copy, but when it comes to corporates, I bet that every establishments of theirs strictly follow the rules. They might be even on the higher moral ground preaching the righteousness to the public. Now another case comes to my mind, the ban on Dixie Chicks in the states.

When almost all the county radio stations banned Dixie Chicks, when their single Landslide fell out of the chart like a landslide, it was upsetting and outrageous.

If it’s possible to fight agaisnt government, can we also fight against corporates?