Censoring, as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2018), refers to "an official who examines materials (such as publications or films) for objectionable matter". (Merriam-Webster, 2018). Censorship has its pros and cons; some pros include censoring a nation's top-secret technological patent which, if released, would compromise a nation's national security, coupled with civil unrest and make a nation the target amongst other nations for that patent, thus censorship can help keep the peace within a nation. For this, the disclosure of the A-11 aircraft in the U.S. in 1964 will be cited as an example. Some cons of censorship of information involve governments censoring less harmless information, because it both limits its citizens to express
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A hypothetical example would be if a nation admits to having powerful weaponry which is far more advanced than what was made publicly available. This would cause a sudden arms race amongst other nations to quickly keep up technologically with the nation who uncensored their powerful weaponry, and perhaps leading to declassifying their own secret documents to avoid being "inferior" to the other nation who first disclosed their top-secret information. This would also cause a sudden urgency to study all components of this advanced weaponry in academic circles, in turn leading to increased government budget spending on educational programs regarding the said invention being confirmed. A real life example of such a scenario occurred in the United States of America, during the 1964 U.S. presidential campaign, when (then) President Lyndon B. Johnson, on February 29 of that same year, openly disclosed at a press conference the existence of the A-11 supersonic aircraft, capable at flying at over two thousand miles per hour, as a means to "permit the orderly exploitation of this advanced technology in our military and commercial programs" (Johnson, Lyndon. B., 1964). The selective declassification of some information and censorship of others, such as the much faster A-12 model (codenamed "OXCART") at the time of the older A-11 model being announced (Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), served as a means to keep additional peace during the Vietnam War during that time period, but also for the U.S. to proclaim their technological superiority over their enemies such as the Soviet Union for fears they were developing much more advanced weaponry. Hence, censorship can be beneficial to prevent further breaches of national security, if any, and could be selectively used to maintain a nation's sense of technological advancement during wartime whilst
A hypothetical example would be if a nation admits to having powerful weaponry which is far more advanced than what was made publicly available. This would cause a sudden arms race amongst other nations to quickly keep up technologically with the nation who uncensored their powerful weaponry, and perhaps leading to declassifying their own secret documents to avoid being "inferior" to the other nation who first disclosed their top-secret information. This would also cause a sudden urgency to study all components of this advanced weaponry in academic circles, in turn leading to increased government budget spending on educational programs regarding the said invention being confirmed. A real life example of such a scenario occurred in the United States of America, during the 1964 U.S. presidential campaign, when (then) President Lyndon B. Johnson, on February 29 of that same year, openly disclosed at a press conference the existence of the A-11 supersonic aircraft, capable at flying at over two thousand miles per hour, as a means to "permit the orderly exploitation of this advanced technology in our military and commercial programs" (Johnson, Lyndon. B., 1964). The selective declassification of some information and censorship of others, such as the much faster A-12 model (codenamed "OXCART") at the time of the older A-11 model being announced (Central Intelligence Agency, 1996), served as a means to keep additional peace during the Vietnam War during that time period, but also for the U.S. to proclaim their technological superiority over their enemies such as the Soviet Union for fears they were developing much more advanced weaponry. Hence, censorship can be beneficial to prevent further breaches of national security, if any, and could be selectively used to maintain a nation's sense of technological advancement during wartime whilst