Censorship

:For other uses, see the disambiguation section.

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Censorship is the control of speech and other forms of human expression, often in the context of government control. It is most commonly applied to acts which occur in public circumstances, and generally involves a suppression of them by criminalizing their expression.

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What is censored may range from specific words to entire concepts, and the ostensible motive of censorship is to stabilize or improve the society over which the government has control.

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Sanitization (removal) and whitewashing (from whitewash) are almost interchangeable terms that refer to a particular form of censorship via omission, which seeks to "clean up" the portrayal of particular issues and facts which are already known, but which may conflict with the official point of view.

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Some consider political correctness to be related, as a socially-imposed (rather than governmentally imposed) type of restriction, which, if taken to extremes may qualify as self-censorship.

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Speech: One might be looking for the academic discipline of communications....

Expression: Expression may refer to:...

Public: Public is of or pertaining to the people; belonging to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; opposed to private; as, the public treasury, a road or lake. Public is also defined as the people of a nation not affiliated with the government of that nation...