Everybody knows that advancements made in technology and social media have made it much easier for people to voice their feelings about any given topic. One can not be on Twitter for more than two minutes before coming across someone criticizing someone else for being out of line. This is even more noteworthy because when someone with a significant number of followers says something on Twitter, then instantaneously that message is delivered to a broad audience. All of a sudden, it becomes a trending topic. This has had a much greater impact on comedians then one would would have thought possible. Once- beloved comedian Kevin Hart saw his dreams of hosting the Oscars squandered once his 2011 tweets, where he made homophobic jokes, resurfaced. Although he did offer an apology, those efforts were squashed once David Mack, a Buzzfeed journalist with 70+ thousand followers deemed the apology insuficcient. 

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Disgraced comedian Louis CK also faced major backlash on social media because of  controversial jokes he made. The topic of these jokes, was the survivors of the Stonemen Douglass High School shooting. He joked that just being survivors does not give them authority to lecture us about changes that need to be made. Unsurprisingly, once these statements were brought to light he became a trending topic on Twitter. Critics with  significant "follower" figures claimed that he had not learned his lessons from his past wrongdoings, and a total and complete censorship is warranted. 

 

Even though the effects of censorship are substantial, it is important for people to express their first amendment rights by calling out these inappropriate behaviors. Comedy Central's Nish Kumar agrees saying "I don't think it's a bad thing for comics to consider the impact of the words they're choosing."(BBC News) However, it is critical that people only call for censorship when it is appropriate. Just this past year, a Pastor from Florida called for the censorship of comedian Sarah Silverman on social media on the basis of her religion.(Newsweek) What this shows is that social media sites offer a platform for people to voice whatever opinion they have about a topic. Therefore, when considering the sources of comedic censorship, social media is clearly one.

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