It is believed that there is too much dangerous content online. Some think that the institutions should intervene by removing harmful informations in order to enhance the internet’s safety. While I do agree that there must be some control over websites, I believe that censorship should be used carefully.
The increasing accessibility of social medias, such as Facebook or Twitter (now X), has led to a threatening spread of false informations. During the COVID pandemic, for instance, conspiracy theorists and politicians used social networks to convince people that masks were useless and vaccines were harmful. This propaganda has led to a diffusion of the disease, worsening the health and economic crisis. In that occasion, the government intervened by making it mandatory to add notes with the sanitary guidelines under every post regarding the pandemic. I think that this kind of control is appropriate, since it gives the reader the opportunity to critically choose what to believe in.
For this reason I do not believe that content should be removed, even if harmful. We have seen in history that censorship is a powerful weapon, since it can be used by dictators to gain more consent. An extreme example is North Korea, where informations regarding the outside world are minimal and the country is depicted to its citizens as the best nation on Earth. While I don’t think we will ever reach this level of censorship, the decision to ban informations is a threat to democracy, since governments could use it not only to remove misleading informations but also to diminish criticism on their politics.
In conclusion, I believe that governments should enhance critical thinking rather than removing unappealing content. In this way, we can truly guarantee democracy.