The Film and Publications Amendment Act is not a step towards censorship – in a democratic South Africa we do not ban content unless the content is unlawful and damages social cohesion in the country – in other words, hate speech, incitement of violence, propaganda for war, child pornography, and so on.
Human beings are innately wired for progress. It is in our evolutionary DNA. History has shown that, often, much is sacrificed in the name of advancement.
At the start of the Second Industrial Revolution, few would have predicted that the burning of fossil fuels would have such deleterious effects on our environment. Through lobbying the global world, via policy summits, 13,000 scientists explicitly called for “bold and drastic transformations” inclusive of economic and population policies. These policies led to legislative change, resulting in enormous positive effects that just may save the world we live in.
Enter the digital revolution with its interesting dynamic, pitting the hard-won right to freedom of speech against the imperative for social cohesion and the protection of personal dignity – the age-old debate in democratic nations around balancing rights and responsibilities.
The penetration of new technologies and the reliance on digital forms of information…
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