Censor bars, also known as black bars, are a form of text, photography, or video censorship in which sensitive content is occluded by rectangular monochrome boxes.The Purple Decades: A Reader, Tom Wolfe, p. 78Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts, Margot Lovejoy & Christiane Paul & Victoria Vesna Since the creation of digital editing software which can apply less obtrusive effects such as pixelization and blurring, censor bars are typically used for satire.Banned in the media: a reference guide to censorship in the press, motion pictures, broadcasting, and the internet, Herbert N. Foerstel, p. 208 Click: The Forces Behind How We Fully Engage with People, Work, and Everything We Do, Ori Brafman & Rom Brafman, p.108 but remain in use to address privacy 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. Alternative methods of obscuring content include overlaid images such as fig leaves.
Illustrations of usage
See also
Bleep censor Colour banding Fogging (censorship), an alternate technique Tape delay (broadcasting)
Fig leaf - Artistic or metaphorical censorship practice
Redaction (also known as sanitization) — the process of removing sensitive information from a document before distribution to a broader audience
Full Block — A Unicode character commonly used for redaction.
References
External links