The sixth episode of the fourteenth season of one of America's most controversial animated sitcoms was censored. Matt Stone and Trey Parker's notorious South Park celebrated its 200th and 201st episode with the reappearance of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, much to the (expected as the Islamic faith did not believe in the depiction of their savior) outrage of the Muslim community. The storyline involved all of the celebrities that South Park had mocked over the years (ranging from Barbra Streisand to Stephe Hawking) working together to try to kidnap Muhammad to capture his power of "not being able to be made fun of by anyone". To avoid possible life-and-death situations involving Muslims unhappy with artists, Comedy Central censored out various parts of the episode without the creators' permission (excluding Muhammad's appearance as a censor sign, which was actually planned).
Stone and Parker said that: "Comedy Central totally [expletive] pussed out. Now, they weren't any different than anyone else, so it's not like you can single them out. But I think it would've been an important statement for one media outlet in America to stand up. That was one of my most disappointing moments as an American--the American press's reaction to the Muhammad cartoons. It was completely wimpy."
There is a very clear question of ethics going on. Proponents of the censoring argue that the material that was going to be aired was offensive to Muslims, and as Comedy Central had pointed out, could potentially incur Muslim attacks that would have risked innocent lives. This makes for a very straightforward and logical argument that says that: if the episode was aired uncensored, there is a high chance that people will get hurt, while not airing the episode uncensored will not have any direct repercussions on people's lives. A New York-based extremist Muslim website had put up the address of Comedy Central headquarters and there had been speculations of an attack and Muslim radicals have been known not only for their suicide bombings (while this may be racial profiling, it holds up in terms of a source of fear, as much of the American populace believes in this ) but also specifically targeting specific people (or artists) that they do not like or go against what they believe in. Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was shot to death on the streets by a Muslim fanatic because of his film about Muslim women and the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was also put under much scrutiny for a comic they ran that satirised Muhammad. At the same time, 9-11 and the various news reports of suicide bombings are still prominent in the minds of the general populace and there is the constant fear that offending would result in yet another tragedy.
However on the flip side, airing the episode uncensored violates the spirit of the first amendment, which protects the individual's freedom of speech and expression. Granted, Comedy Central is a private network and the producers should have the rights to pull what is deemed inappropriate, but to do so without prior notification to the artist does not seem to be an ethical thing to do as it infringes on the artists' rights to freedom of expression.
What this really boils down to is the question of whether or not censorship is justified if it involves the lives and welfare of a larger population. On one hand if the rights are suppressed for the sake of the common good, the definition of "common good" must be put into question. Material like child pornography are banned because they directly harm people, but what about things like revolutionary writing? Should information that cite rebellion, like say the Declaration of Independence, be censored as well because someone could get hurt as a result of it? The ambiguity of the definition and what is considered to be the "common good" would then make it easy for people in power to only have what they want the people to know shown, which would then easily spiral us into an Orwellian existence. However on the other side of the spectrum, are we willing to deal with the consequences of what we are to say? There always exist a possibility that things could spiral out of control due to the published material, and slippery slope or not, people could get hurt because of it.
Personally, I believe that the censorship of the episode in question is justified. As much of a proponent of free speech as I am, I don't believe that putting the lives of others directly in jeopardy is justified in the instance of a cartoon episode. Granted I do believe that the Muslim groups are over-reacting a little bit, but even with that in mind, it does not change the fact that people could very easily get hurt had the episode been aired uncensored.
This instance relates very easily to the ban of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in various nations (or nude child art that could possibly be interpreted as pornography), as there are possible implications of harm done towards others because of the publishing of the media.
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