In 1644, John Milton wrote a piece of prose titled "Areopagitica" in opposition to the new censorship laws during the English Civil War. In the 1930’s, Nazis burned thousands of books that they believed to be offensive. Throughout the 21st century, China has attempted to censor the Internet. The point is, although censorship may work for a short period of time, history has shown us that it does not last very long. Censorship in England ultimately went away, the truth about Nazi Germany eventually came out, and today China is struggling to regulate its citizen’s Internet usage. Especially in a day and age of social media, it is difficult to contain breaking news and information, regardless of whether or not the government wants to. However, since President Trump’s transition into the White House, we have, yet again, seen an attempt to censor the truth from a nations’ people.
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently on what iTech Post calls a “media blackout”. According to the site, “the agency cannot post updates on social media, issue press releases or posts blogs communicating their most recent findings.” As of right now, these researchers are only able to share information with the public via peer-reviewed journals. My immediate reaction was shock and confusion. Trump, who has made his dislike of the media no secret, doesn’t seem like the type of person to limit social media use. Considering that he himself is extremely vocal on Twitter, I was surprised to hear about this censorship.
According to an NPR article about this issue, it is common for presidential administrations to control information, especially at the beginning of their terms. However, Andrew Light tells NPR, “I think that what we're seeing here is much more sweeping than has ever been done before.” Light, a senior fellow in the Global Climate Program at the World Resources Institute, also said “it's noteworthy that it seems to be aimed at a cluster of science-driven agencies that primarily work on the environment and climate change." While it’s comforting that this sort of behavior is somewhat normal, I can’t help but worry how actions like this have the ability to threaten democracy.
As a student aspiring to do editorial work or journalism and an English major, it worries me that our current president seems to be so adamantly against both the media and the ethic of free of speech. Not only did Trump shut down the EPA’s Twitter, he also required that individual employees stay off of their personal social media accounts.
The thing about freedom of speech is that it isn’t subjective. Everyone has a right to speak his or her mind. This is one of the fundamental beliefs of a democracy. How can we expect to make progress if people are not able to share their ideas and beliefs? Certainly, we saw this happen peacefully last week with the women’s marches that took place around both the nation and the world. Limiting one’s ability to tweet may seem like an insignificant move, but in reality, this action makes it seem like the Trump Administration will silence those who they don’t agree with. Furthermore, limiting what scientists can share with the public is more detrimental than you might think.
Among the things we read and see from government science are weather forecasts, flu strains active in any given year, and research that helps farmers produce enough food annually. While we still may have access to the weather app on our phones right now, how can we ever know how far Trump will go with this censorship? Furthermore, according to Popular Science, the value of science comes from its ability to improve our lives. If we stop sharing research and start keeping secrets, how will we have healthy conversations about solving problems and making important changes? Science often sparks conversations, which is great because that’s what a democracy is all about.
Censoring scientific research does more harm than good. Cases where censorship is appropriate are far and few between. Perhaps allowing people to have certain pieces of information would put them in danger, we could justify keeping them in the dark. However, when it comes to science, something that affects everyone on a daily basis, the American people have a right to know what research is being done with their tax dollars. Social media sites like Twitter only open up lines of communication and encourage collaboration.
If we’re truly a democracy, everyone should have access to information they’re interested in and everyone should have the ability to speak their mind freely so long as it doesn’t harm anyone. President Trump has crossed the line with his attempt at censoring scientific research because limiting the people's knowledge is a threat to democracy.
