The Westport Independent Is a Video Game That Helps Us Understand Censorship

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what the word “censorship” means. Thankfully, there’s a game that aims to help players understand what censorship actually means and how it works.

The Westport Independent is currently in alpha, but in it, players can decide how and when to adjust the news people receive, and whether to fight the government’s agenda, or subvert it and risk persecution. Because, you see, censorship has to do with the law and government persecution, not whether or not one individual agrees or disagrees with another individual’s opinion, product, or habits.

(via BoingBoing)

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Teresa Jusino

Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.

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