Now that we have that bit out of the way, on to my actual opinion. While I do believe there is some truth to the commentary from Family Guy, for the most part I'm ok with an acceptable level of censorship.
I believe that there is a time and a place for crude language, situations, etc. but that it's only acceptable if it truly enhances the story. I feel an excellent example of this is the classic book To Kill a Mockingbird. There is a significant amount of racism depicted in the book. However, it enhances the story. In this instance the racism is used to depict the issues that a society has and how they can be overcome when someone will stand up for whats right.
I have a friend who is teaching from this book in her English class for high school juniors. She did everything by the book and notified the student of the racism ahead of time and explained the use of this racism similar to how I did above. While most of her students used intelligent, critical thinking about the issue, there were a few who simply refused to read it based on principal.
I'm not saying those people are wrong, I'm just saying that I believe that is how censorship should be handled. Everything should be presented upfront and once the consumer is of age or maturity to decided for themselves, they should be allowed to.
Knowing that I'd like to say that I feel completely different about Apple censoring Apps in their App Store. My issue is not a matter of morality but of Apple's attitude and advertising of their App Store. Apple likes to market their iPhone and App Store using terms "open" and "freedom" and "magical." First of all... Magical... yeah right. But under what definition of open or freedom is the inclusion of censorship? I believe this model will ultimately be the demise of Apple. Their attitude of being better than everyone else is just waiting to back fire... and this is coming from a former Apple user.
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