Censorship could occur in several intensifying degrees. In France, censorship of images was always more severe than censorship of text because images were thought to have a more direct appeal to the lower classes whose literacy was limited. It was customarily exerted in one of two ways: normally, censorship was post-publication, meaning that if a text or image was judged offensive, it would be seized and the author, artist, and publisher tried, fined, and imprisoned. In periods of great instability, however, the more severe measure of prior censorship was instituted.

Last March, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, the network’s National Security Analyst, added to the turmoil when he emailed colleagues he was quitting after 10 years because he was “ashamed” of what his employer had become. Implicit but not stated in Peters’s diatribe, is the lurking specter of censorship. He accused the network’s primetime hosts of “dismissing facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults” against the network’s targeted enemies. 

Labeling is a social construct.  Words derive their strength only from the power given to them by people, but the implication of an empathetic void or even malicious intent for fellow members of society elicits a visceral and very human response from target and spectator alike.  It is used by varying entities consciously and unconsciously, offensively and defensively, but on all fronts requires little effort to create, is self-sustaining and occurs virtually unnoticed.  

Vietnam is continuing its crackdown on dissents, with four more people sentenced to terms of imprisonment for challenging state authority.Three women farmers were jailed for up to four years for displaying flags of the old government of South Vietnam during protests against land seizures. A blogger, best known by his pen name, Nguyen Ngoc Gia, also received a four-year term for carrying out “propaganda against the state."

 Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are witness to the culture war between liberal student activists battling against what they see as a racist, patriarchal and sexist culture, and their critics, convinced that universities are becoming less hotbeds of vigorous debate, but places where hypersensitive students are coddled, and unpopular views are effectively squelched. As is the case with any group of students, the views of Chinese nationals toward cultural appropriation, trigger warnings and other hot-button campus issues reflect the full spectrum of opinion.

Government officials and world institutions are even worse when it comes to self-censorship. On Feb 5, 2003, before then Secretary of State Colin Powell in his infamous WMD speech at the United Nations in New York, U.N. officials rushed to cover up the giant tapestry version of Pablo Picasso's anti-war mural "Guernica." Powell held up a little vial and told the world that, had that vial really contained WMD, it could kill tens of thousands. He managed to convince the already paranoid public that US invasion Iraq is a must. 

Images, and the words that oftentimes accompany them, have a tendency to take on lives of their own.  The mustache sported so famously by Hitler represents many things.  It represents fear, violence, extermination, destruction, hate.  The very fact that someone would use an image as loaded as that of Hitler to make a statement about an economic policy is irresponsible.  That being said, the policies born from economic theories have had huge impacts on the lives of millions upon millions of people.  

Vietnam, a police state where freedom of expression can come with a multi-year prison term, is awash in cell phones. Whether for talking, texting or taking photos, Vietnamese are buying up mobile devices at a rate exceeding the country’s own population. A sign of the communist nation’s rising affluence, it is also undermining the state’s monopoly on information. With phones available for as little as $20, ordinary consumers are buying up sets that would otherwise have been bound for foreign shores.