Loki lectures 💚

Professor Loki: Lecture

For a few select few of you, I shall attempt to educate those who do not know the difference between a trigger warning and censorship.  It has come to my attention that some cannot differentiate between the two and that is woefully negligent especially if you intend to use this to argue a toss.

For those of you who sent your followers after my friend based on her religion, or were butt hurt by a wattpad deleted gang rape story where Loki acts out of character, this picture is for you.

This outdated information that the two are the same is hogwash. So, to the point and without further ado:  A trigger warning is much like a tag.  You know, those things that actual good authors use to warn their audience of what can be found in a piece of quality literature or even a ficlet. They are called Trigger warnings or Content warning!
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In its most simplest terms, it acts as a short statement at the start of a piece of writing, a video, etc.  And, it alerts the reader or viewer (the audience) to the fact that it does and will contain potentially distressing material.

In recent years, people who have compassion and understanding for others have started including trigger warnings for content dealing with a range of topics, including:
homophobia or transphobia.
rape and other forms of sexual violence including but not just limited to the following:

• child abuse.
• violence.
• incest.
• animal abuse or death.
• racism.
• self-harm.

You can see that trigger warnings or content notifications can be written or visual and are usually delivered at the start of a book even movies use them. Such warnings are not designed to censor but rather they enable the audience to approach difficult subjects on their own terms and in doing so this can prompt a greater depth of respectful understanding to a sensitive matter.

Content notifications are deemed as important for ensuring that readers can be warned in advance for the potential to encounter distressing content. Including such trigger warnings means that the readers do not have to unexpectedly confront difficult past events if they do not want to.  Subjects that require a trigger warning/content notification include (but are not explicitly limited to) accounts of genocide, violence (including sexual or racist violence), murder, sexual assault, transphobic, racist or homophobic slurs, miscarriage or infant death.

Onto censorship:

Censorship, is merely the suppression of words, images, or even ideas that are deemed as objectionable.  Books have actually been changed and outright banned from the market due to censorship.   It's completely different from a trigger warning.  If anything, censorship would serve to remove words rather than list them like content warnings do so people know what is in a story or motion picture.

I have also very kindly added an article onto this chapter.

"Censorship rules tell you what you can and can't do as a creator. Trigger warnings function to warn a reader, viewer, or user about the specific content of what you create."

The key difference between censorship and the use of trigger warnings is that the former impacts an actual created work, such as a book or movie, while the latter does not. As an example, suppose there is a book on sale in several countries, whose laws on freedom of expression differ from one another.

Censorship blocks out certain elements or scenes due to their content. A country might censor media to cull any political dissent that may be brewing among its citizens. In our book example, this means that a country like Russia or China will allow the book only in abridged or redacted form, if they allow it at all.

On the other hand, using a trigger warning can be likened to the summary and blurbs often found on the back of books. In addition to those things, book publishers could choose to print a trigger warning on the book's cover or on one of the first few pages. This would not require the publisher or the original writer to alter the book's content or message. Anyone who wanted to read the book in its original entirety could still choose to do so."
London Graves 2019. https://medium.com/swlh/trigger-warnings-and-censorship-are-not-the-same-ab94bd1dfb0b

Honestly people, get a clue.
Sincerely