In the United States, censorship involves the suppression of speech or public communication and raises issues of freedom of speech, which is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Interpretation of this fundamental freedom has varied since its enshrinement. Traditionally, the First Amendment was regarded as applying only to the Federal government, leaving the U.S. states and the local communities free to censor or not. As the applicability of states' rights in lawmaking vis-a-vis citizens' national rights began to wane in the wake of the Civil War, censorship by any level of government eventually came under scrutiny, but not without resistance. For example, in recent decades, censorial restraints increased during the 1950s period of widespread anti-communist sentiment, as exemplified by the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In Miller v. California (1973), the U.S. Supreme Court found that the First Amendment's freedom of speech does not apply to obscenity, which can, therefore, be censored. While certain forms of hate speech are legal so long as they do not turn to action or incite others to commit illegal acts, more severe forms have led to people or groups (such as the Ku Klux Klan) being denied marching permits or the Westboro Baptist Church being sued, although the initial adverse ruling against the latter was later overturned on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court case Snyder v. Phelps.
The First Amendment protects against government censorship but not against censorship by corporations or other private entities, which are permitted to control the speech of their spokespersons, employees, or business associates by threatening monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace. However, the government often uses corporations as proxies for censorship, a practice often called "jawboning" or censorship-by-proxy. This occurs when officials use informal pressure, implicit threats, or regulatory leverage to coerce corporations, such as social media, news organizations, banks, broadcasters, advertisers, and payment networks, to censor speech on the government's behalf. Many of these corporations are either on board with such censorship or can be pressured into censoring because they depend on government licenses, regulatory approvals, or antitrust clearance.
Analysts from Reporters Without Borders ranked the United States 57th in the world out of 180 countries in their 2025 Press Freedom Index and they gave the country a "problematic" designation. Certain forms of speech, such as obscenity and defamation, are restricted in communications media by the government or by the industry on its own.
History
Colonial government Censorship came to British America with the Mayflower "when the governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts, William Bradford learned [in 1629]John P. McWilliams, "Thomas Morton: Phoenix of New England Memory" in New England's Crises and Cultural Memory: Literature, Politics, History, Religion, 1620–1860. Cambridge University Press, , pp. 44–73. that Thomas Morton of Merrymount, in addition to his other misdeed, had 'composed sundry rhymes and verses, some tending to lasciviousness' the only solution was to send a military expedition to break up Morton's high-living."Paul S. Boyer, "Boston Book Censorship in the Twenties". American Quarterly, Vo. 15, No, 1 (Spring, 1963), p. 3.
A celebrated legal case in 1734–1735 involved John Peter Zenger, a New York newspaper printer who regularly published material critical of the corrupt Governor of New York, William Cosby. He was jailed eight months before being tried for seditious libel. Andrew Hamilton defended him and was made famous for his speech, ending in "nature and the laws of our country have given us a right to liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power ... by speaking and writing the truth." Zenger's lawyers attempted to establish the precedent that a statement, even if defamatory, is not libelous if it can be proved. While the judge ruled against his arguments, Hamilton urged jury nullification in the cause of liberty and won a not guilty verdict. The Zenger case paved the way for freedom of the press to be adopted in the U.S. Constitution. As Founding Father Gouverneur Morris stated, "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America."
19th century
Beginning in the 1830s and until the American Civil War, the U.S. Postmaster General refused to allow mailmen to carry abolitionist pamphlets to the South.Schlesinger Age of Jackson, p. 190
From 1836 to 1844 the House of Representatives banned discussing slavery.
On March 3, 1873, significant censorship legislation, the Comstock Law, was passed by the United States Congress under the Grant administration; an Act for the "Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use." The Act criminalized usage of the U.S. Postal Service to send any of the following items: erotica; contraceptives; abortifacients; sex toys; personal letters alluding to any sexual content or information; or any information regarding the above items.
The law was named after Anthony Comstock, U.S. Postal Inspector and founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, who was known for his crusades against sexual expression and education. Comstock's name became a byword for censorship, inspiring terms such as "comstockery" and "comstockism" to refer to such activities. He opposed the distribution of information about abortion and birth control, and he is credited with having destroyed 15 tons of books, almost 4,000,000 pictures and 284,000 pounds of printing plates for making "objectionable" books.
20th century
Wilson administration The Sedition Act of 1918 () was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.Stone, 541; Kennedy, 80
It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years.Stone, 12 The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war." The U.S. was in a declared a state of war at the time of passage, the First World War.Stone, 186; Chafee, 44–45 The law was repealed on December 13, 1920.Stone, 230
Though the legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, it was actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act.Chafee, 44
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration
The "Radio Priest" Charles Coughlin started broadcasting in 1926 and entertained an audience of millions in the 1930s, but became increasingly anti-democratic, antisemitic, and sympathetic to Nazi Germany. Coughlin was denied a license when the government first started requiring them for broadcasters, forcing him to purchase air time from others. He was forced off the air completely when the private National Association of Broadcasters adopted rules banning "spokesmen of controversial public issues". The mailing permit of Coughlin's newspaper Social Justice was suspended under the Espionage Act of 1917, confining delivery to the local Boston area. The paper was shut down after the government persuaded Coughlin's bishop to stop his political activities entirely.
The Office of Censorship, an emergency wartime agency, heavily censored reporting during World War I, and to a greater extent during World War II, war correspondents accompanied military forces, and their reports were subject to advance censorship to preserve military secrets. The extent of such censorship was not generally challenged, and no major court case arose from this issue; even the Supreme Court found it constitutional on the grounds that it "protected free speech from tyranny.""Free Speech" , Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Retrieved 26 October 2013.
On December 19, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8985, which established the Office of Censorship and conferred on its director the power to censor international communications in "his absolute discretion." Byron Price was selected as the Director of Censorship. However, censorship was not limited to reporting; postal censorship also took place. "Every letter that crossed international or U.S. territorial borders from December 1941 to August 1945 was subject to being opened and scoured for details."Fiset, Louis. Return to Sender: U.S. Censorship of Enemy Alien Mail in World War II , Prologue Magazine Spring 2001, Vol. 33, No. 1. Retrieved from U.S. Government National Archives.
Racial Censorship During World War Two Under the Roosevelt Administration
As ordered by the Roosevelt administration, the Office of War Information (OWI) and the Office of Censorship worked hard to present the American public with the most sanitized version of the Second World War. Not only were the images of dead G.I’s and the results of American bombings shielded from public consumption, but so were images and information regarding the contributions, actions, and accolades of African-American Soldiers. The OWI and the Office of Censorship were tasked with encouraging “widespread and enthusiastic participation in the war effort while minimizing concern over disruptions to the existing social order,”Roeder, George H., Jr. The Censored War: American Visual Experience during World War Two. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993 thus creating the censorship of anything that may alarm America that World War Two (WWII) was threatening the American, segregationist, way of life. Over the course of the almost four years that the United States was directly involved in WWII, the OWI prevented the distribution of photographs that showed wounded Black soldiers, candid racial unity or integration, and racial disturbances both at home and abroad. They also used the framing process of segmentation to show African-American soldiers different films in preparation for the war and to distribute certain material to different news outlets based on race.
The OWI had to walk a fine line between keeping white America happy, Black America willing to continue to send their sons off to war, and presenting images of racial unity outwardly, in order to “make Hitler mad.” In efforts to combat Hitler’s disgusting rhetoric towards Black people and other minority groups, the OWI suggested to Hollywood that they integrate Black soldiers into “crowd scenes” and released a “pamphlet praising black achievements,", the latter of which garnered immense criticism, especially from Southern lawmakers and citizens. Despite these pushbacks, the OWI still needed to present a United States without racial segregation to its Axis enemies and crafted the poster titled “United We Win.” This poster depicts one Black and one White industrial worker collaborating on a task with a large American flag hanging above them, which becomes the focal point of the image.