Censor bars, also known as black bars, are a basic form of text,
photography
Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
, and
video
Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...
in which "sensitive" information or images are occluded by black, gray, or white rectangular boxes. These bars have been used to censor various parts of images. Since the creation of
digital editing
In mass communication, digital media is any communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronic d ...
software which can apply less obtrusive effects such as
pixelization
Pixelization (in British English pixelisation) or mosaic processing is any technique used in editing images or video, whereby an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorshi ...
and
blurring, censor bars are typically used for
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...
,
[Click: The Forces Behind How We Fully Engage with People, Work, and Everything We Do, Ori Brafman & Rom Brafman, p.10]
/ref> although they remain in contemporary use to address privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
concerns. Censor bars are also used in art forms such as blackout poetry.
Censor bars may also have the words "censored", "redacted", "private information", "sensitive information", etc. to indicate their presence.
Sometimes, censor bars are replaced by images instead of just bars.
Illustrations of usage
File:1965 FBI monograph on Nation of Islam - Elijah Muhammad at Airport (redacted).png, A 1965 Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...
photograph
File:Aclu-v-ashcroft-redacted.jpg, A heavily redacted page from the lawsuit ''American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft
''American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft'' (filed April 9, 2004 in the United States) is a lawsuit filed on behalf of a formerly unknown Internet Service Provider (ISP) company under the pseudonym John Doe, Inc. by the American Civil Libertie ...
''
File:Google Doodle Censored 2.png, The censor bar as used by Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
in the SOPA and PIPA online protests
File:CENSORED The Birth of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879).jpg, Censor bars applied to an academy painting, ''The Birth of Venus
''The Birth of Venus'' ( ) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid-1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus (mythology), Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea ful ...
'' by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (; 30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905) was a French Academic art, academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classicism, classical subjects, with a ...
File:Frau-2 censored de.jpg, Censor bars applied to a model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , .
Models can be divided in ...
File:Stevens-johnson-syndrome.jpg, Censor bars applied to a patient with Stevens–Johnson syndrome
Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) is a type of severe skin reaction. Together with toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) and #Classification, Stevens–Johnson/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) overlap, they are considered febrile mucocutaneous d ...
File:Riley day.jpg, Censor bars used to anonymise a woman with familial dysautonomia
Familial dysautonomia (FD), also known as Riley–Day syndrome, is a rare, progressive, recessive genetic disorder of the autonomic nervous system that affects the development and survival of sensory, sympathetic, and some parasympathetic neuro ...
File:Censored wikipedia logo for trwiki.svg, The Turkish Wikipedia logo with a censor bar covering the text, used from April 2017 to January 2020 when Turkish authorities blocked online access to Wikipedia in all languages across Turkey
File:Chwiesiuk complaint affidavit 0.pdf, A portion of the redacted affidavit used to obtain a search warrant for former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago
Mar-a-Lago ( , ) is a resort and National Historic Landmark on a barrier island in Palm Beach, Florida, United States. It spans 126 rooms and built on of land. Since 1985, it has been owned by Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of t ...
home and resort, with the signature block blacked out
See also
* Redaction
Redaction or sanitization is the process of removing sensitive information from a document so that it may be distributed to a broader audience. It is intended to allow the selective disclosure of information. Typically, the result is a document ...
(also known as sanitization) — the process of removing sensitive information from a document before distribution to a broader audience
References
External links
Censorship
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