For other uses, see Censor.

Censorship is the editing, removing, or otherwise changing speech and other forms of human expression. In some cases, it is exercised by governing bodies but it is always and continuously carried out by the mass media. The visible motive of censorship is often to stabilize, improve or persuade the society group that the censoring organization would have control over. It is most commonly applied to acts that occur in public circumstances, and most formally involves the suppression of ideas by criminalizing or regulating expression. Furthermore, discussion of censorship often includes less formal means of controlling perceptions by excluding various ideas from mass communication. What is censored may range from specific words to entire concepts and it may be influenced by value systems; but currently, the most common reasons for censoring ("omitting") information are the particular interests of the distribution companies of news and entertainment, their owners, and their commercial and political connections. For omission and secrecy, see censorship. ... Look up Speech in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Expression may refer to: (in the vernacular) the act or particular way of expressing something (including an emotion through a facial expression or configuration) (in mathematics) a mathematical expression (in computing) a programming language expression (in computing) a vector graphics software Microsoft Expression (in genetics) the effect produced by a... A government is a body that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws within a civil, corporate, religious, academic, or other organization or group. ... Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... Human relationships within an ethnically diverse society. ... Public is of or pertaining to the people; belonging to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; opposed to private; as, the public treasury, a road or lake. ... In any debate, sometimes the more powerful opponent will try to silence the other rather than trying to defeat their arguments. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetical value. ... A concept is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given category or class of entities, interactions, phenomena, or relationships between them. ... A value system is in essence the ordering and prioritization of the ethical and ideological values that an individual or society holds. ...

Sanitization (removal) and whitewashing are almost interchangeable terms that refer to a particular form of censorship via omission, which seeks to "clean up" the portrayal of particular issues and/or facts that are already known, but that may be in conflict with the point of view of the censor. Some may consider extreme political correctness to be related, as a socially-imposed (rather than governmentally imposed) type of restriction, which, if taken to extremes, may qualify as self-censorship. A page of a classified document that has been sanitized for public release. ... Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, or calsomine is a type of inexpensive paint made from slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) and chalk (whiting). ... Conflict is a state of opposition, disagreement or incompatibility between two or more people or groups of people, which is sometimes characterized by physical violence. ... Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ... Self-censorship is the act of censoring and/or classifying ones own book(s), film(s), or other kind of art to avoid offending others without an authority pressuring them to do so. ...

Types

Most public speech depends on an organized forum such as a court or town meeting, or on technologies such as paper, the printing press, radio, television, or the Internet. In each case, only a minority of people have initially had free access to the medium of public communication. Most often, censorship does not seek to ban certain ideas "in a vacuum," but rather to restrict what may be said in particular media of communication. A trial at the Old Bailey in London as drawn by Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin for Ackermanns Microcosm of London (1808-11). ... Town meeting is a form of local government commonly practiced in the U.S. region of New England, but uncommon elsewhere in the United States. ... Piece of A4 paper Paper is a thin material produced by the amalgamation of plant fibres, which are subsequently held together without extra binder, largely by hydrogen bonds and to a large degree by fiber entanglement. ... The printing press is a mechanical device for printing many copies of a text on rectangular sheets of paper. ...

In England, censorship began with the introduction of copyright laws, which gave the Crown the permission to license publishing. Without government approval, printing was not allowed. For a court or other governmental body to prevent a person from speaking or publishing before the act has taken place is sometimes called prior restraint, which may be viewed as worse than punishment received after someone speaks, as in libel suits. Prior restraint is a legal term referring to a governments actions that prevent materials from being published. ...

Censorship can be explicit, as in laws passed to prevent select positions from being published or propagated (e.g., the People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Australia, and The United States), or it can be implicit, taking the form of intimidation by government, where people are afraid to express or support certain opinions for fear of losing their jobs, their position in society, their credibility, or their lives. The latter form is similar to McCarthyism and is prevalent in a number of countries including the United States. For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ... Senator Joseph McCarthy McCarthyism is the term describing a period of intense anti-Communist suspicion in the United States that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. ...

A National Geographic Magazine censored by Iranian authorities. The offending cover was about the subject of love, and the picture hidden beneath the white sticker is of an embracing couple^[1]. February 2006.

The Rhodesia Herald of September 21, 1966.

Wieczór Wrocławia" - Daily newspaper of Wrocław, People's Republic of Poland, March 20-21-21, 1981, with censor intervention on first and last pages --- under the headlines "Co zdarzyło się w Bydgoszczy?" (What happened in Bydgoszcz?) and "Pogotowie strajkowe w całym kraju" (Country-wide strike alert). The censor had removed a section regarding the strike alert; hence the workers in the printing house had decided to also blank out a second official propaganda section. The right-hand page also includes a hand-written confirmation of that decision by the local "Solidarność" Trade Union.

Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (512x741, 151 KB) Picture of a censored version of National Geographic from Iran. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (512x741, 151 KB) Picture of a censored version of National Geographic from Iran. ... The National Geographic Magazine, later shortened to National Geographic, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Love Look up love in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (651x835, 311 KB) Summary The front page of the Rhodesia Herald of September 21, 1966 showing the effect of the Rhodesian censor. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (651x835, 311 KB) Summary The front page of the Rhodesia Herald of September 21, 1966 showing the effect of the Rhodesian censor. ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2450x1700, 824 KB) Summary Wieczór Wrocławia - Breslauer Abendzeitung, Ausgabe vom 20. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2450x1700, 824 KB) Summary Wieczór Wrocławia - Breslauer Abendzeitung, Ausgabe vom 20. ... Wrocław, (Polish pronunciation: (?), Czech: , German: ( (help· info)), Latin: Wratislavia or Vratislavia) is the capital of Lower Silesia in southwestern Poland, situated on the Oder River (Odra). ... The Peoples Republic of Poland or Polish Peoples Republic (Polish: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1989, during its period of rule by the Communist party, officially called the Polish United Workers Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, or PZPR). ... Bydgoszcz ( ; German: ; Latin: Bydgostia) is a city in northern Poland, on the Brda and Vistula rivers, with a population of 369,151 (2004). ... Solidarity (Polish: Solidarność; full name: Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarity — Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy Solidarność) is a Polish trade union federation founded in September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyards, and originally led by Lech Wałęsa. ...

Subject matter

The rationale for censorship is different for various types of data censored. There are five main types:

• Moral censorship is the means by which any material that contains what the censor deems to be of questionable morality is removed. The censoring body disapproves of what it deems to be the values behind the material and limits access to it. Pornography, for example, is often censored under this rationale. In another example, graphic violence resulted in the censorship of the 1932 "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" movie entitled "Scarface" originally completed in 1930.
• Military censorship is the process of keeping military intelligence and tactics confidential and away from the enemy. This is used to counter espionage, which is the process of gleaning military information. Additionally, military censorship may involve a restriction on information or media coverage that can be released to the public such as in Iraq, where the U.S. government restricts the photographing or filming of dead soldiers or their caskets and its subsequent broadcast in the U.S. This is done to avoid public reaction similar to that which occurred during the Vietnam War or the Iran Hostage Crisis.
• Political censorship occurs when governments conceal secrets from their citizens. The logic is to prevent the free expression needed to revolt. Democracies do not officially approve of political censorship but often endorse it privately. Any dissent against the government is thought to be a “weakness” for the enemy to exploit. Campaign tactics are also often kept secret: see the Watergate scandal.
• Religious censorship is the means by which any material objectionable to a certain faith is removed. This often involves a dominant religion forcing limitations on less dominant ones. Alternatively, one religion may shun the works of another when they believe the content is not appropriate for their faith.
• Corporate censorship is the process by which editors in corporate media outlets intervene to halt the publishing of information that portrays their business or business partners in a negative light. Privately owned corporations in the business of reporting the news also sometimes refuse to distribute information due to the potential loss of advertiser revenue or shareholder value which adverse publicity may bring.

Pornographic movies Pornography (from Greek πόρνη (porni) prostitute and γραφή (grafi) writing), more informally referred to as porn or porno, is the representation of the human body or sexual activity with the goal of sexual arousal. ... The National Film Registry is the registry of films selected by the United States National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. ... Scarface (also known as Scarface, the Shame of the Nation and The Shame of a Nation) is a 1932 gangster film of the Pre-Code era which tells the story of gang warfare and police intervention when rival gangs fight over control of a city. ... Military intelligence (abbreviated MI, int. ... Military tactics (Greek: Taktikē, the art of organizing an army) is the collective name for methods of engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. ... Espionage is the practice of obtaining information about an organization or a society that is considered secret or confidential (spying) without the permission of the holder of the information. ... This article is about revolution in the sense of a drastic change. ... The term Watergate refers to a series of events, spanning from 1972 to 1974, that gained its name from burglaries of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel complex in Washington, D.C.. Though then-President Nixon had endured two years of mounting political embarrassments, the... Various religious symbols Religion is a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals associated with...

State secrets and unwanted attention

In wartime, explicit censorship is carried out with the intent of preventing the release of information that might be useful to an enemy. Typically it involves keeping times or locations secret, or delaying the release of information (e.g., an operational objective) until it is of no possible use to enemy forces. The moral issues here are often seen as somewhat different, as release of tactical information usually presents a greater risk of casualties among one's own forces and could possibly lead to loss of the overall conflict. During World War I letters written by British soldiers would have to go through censorship. This consisted of officers going through letters with a black marker and crossing out anything which might compromise operational secrecy before the letter was sent. The World War II catchphrase "Loose lips sink ships" was used as a common justification to exercise official wartime censorship and encourage individual restraint when sharing potentially sensitive information. For other uses of War, see War (disambiguation). ... OPFOR Soldiers at Fort Polk, LA. An opposing force (OPFOR) is a military unit tasked with representing an enemy, usually for training purposes in war game scenarios. ... Combatants Allied Powers: British Empire France Italy Russia United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria Germany Ottoman Empire Commanders Ferdinand Foch Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Paul... Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Nazi Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Harry Truman Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead...

A well-known example of sanitization policies comes from the USSR under Josef Stalin, where publicly used photographs were often altered to remove people whom Stalin had condemned to execution. Though past photographs may have been remembered or kept, this deliberate and systematic alteration to all of history in the public mind is seen as one of the central themes of Stalinism and totalitarianism. More recently, the official exclusion of television crews from locales where coffins of military dead were in transit has been cited as a form of censorship. This particular example obviously represents an incomplete or failed form of censorship, as numerous photographs of these coffins are often printed in newspapers, magazines, and on the web. Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვი&#4314... Joseph Stalin. ... Totalitarianism is a term employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. ...

School textbooks

The content of school textbooks is often the issue of debate, since their target audience is young people, and the term "whitewashing" is the one commonly used to refer to selective removal of critical or damaging evidence or comment. The reporting of military atrocities in history is extremely controversial, as in the case of the Nanking Massacre, the Holocaust (or Holocaust denial), and the Winter Soldier Investigation of the Vietnam War. The representation of every society's flaws or misconduct is typically downplayed in favor of a more nationalist, favorable or patriotic view. Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. ... The references in this article would be clearer with a different and/or consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Richard Harwoods Did Six Million Really Die? Holocaust denial is the claim that the mainstream historical version of the Holocaust is either highly exaggerated or completely falsified. ... The Winter Soldier Investigation was a media event intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War, while showing their direct relationship to military leadership and the foreign and anti-Communist policies of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000...

Also, some religious groups have at times attempted to block the teaching of evolution in schools, as evolutionary theory appears to contradict their religious beliefs. The teaching of sexual education in school and the inclusion of information about sexual health and contraceptive practices in school textbooks is another area where suppression of information occurs. In 1832, while travelling on the Beagle, naturalist Charles Darwin collected giant fossils in South America. ... Various religious symbols Religion is a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals associated with... Sex education is a broad term used to describe education about human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, and other aspects of human sexual behavior. ... Safe sex (also called safer sex or protected sex) is a set of practices that are designed to reduce the risk of infection during sexual intercourse to avoid developing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). ... Birth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of a woman becoming pregnant or giving birth. ...

In the context of secondary-school education, the way facts and history are presented greatly influences the interpretation of contemporary thought, opinion and socialization. One argument for censoring the type of information disseminated is based on the inappropriate quality of such material for the young. The use of the "inappropriate" distinction is in itself controversial, as it can lead to a slippery slope enforcing wider and more politically-motivated censorship. Some artists such as Frank Zappa helped in the protest against censorship. Although they failed they did put up a good argument. One of the main things that first caused censorship was the rap group N.W.A. for the themes in their music. In debate or rhetoric, the slippery slope is an argument for the likelihood of one event given another. ...

Music

American musicians such as Frank Zappa have repeatadly protested against censorship in music and pushed for more freedom of expression. In 1986, Zappa appeared on CNN Crossfire to protest censorship of lyrics in rock songs.

See also

• Anthony Comstock
• Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England
• Autocensorship
• Bleep censor
• Book burning
• Book banning
• the Censored Eleven (banned Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons)
• Charles Schumer
• Censorware
• Chilling effect
• Cindy's Torment
• Communism
• Content-control software
• Death Whoop
• Edited movie
• Elsebeth Baumgartner
• Entertainment Software Rating Board
• Fahrenheit 451
• Freemuse
• Freedom of speech
• Gatekeeper (politics)
• Index Librorum Prohibitorum of The Roman Catholic Church
• International Freedom of Expression eXchange
• Jack Thompson
• Joe Lieberman
• John Stuart Mill
• Lady Chatterley's Lover
• Leland Yee
• Media content ratings system
• Media controversy
• Media transparency
• MPAA rating system
• NEA Four
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Police state
• Prior restraint
• Production Code
• Project Censored
• SourceWatch
• Standards & Practices
• Parents Television Council
• Super Bowl XXXVIII controversy
• Thomas Bowdler
• Tunisia Monitoring Group
• TV Parental Guidelines
• Tufty
• V-chip
• Mary Whitehouse
• Whitewashing
• Obscurantism

Portrait of Anthony Comstock Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 - September 21, 1915) was a United States reformer dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality. ... Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicenced printing to the Parliament of England is a prose tract or polemic by John Milton, published November 23, 1644, at the height of the English Civil War. ... Self-censorship is when a film producer, film director, publisher or author censors and/or classifies his/her own books or films. ... A bleep censor is used to filter out inappropriate audio content during a live United States the Federal Communications Commission has the constitutional right to regulate indecent broadcasts. ... Book burning is the practice of ceremoniously destroying by fire one or more copies of a book or other written material. ... Many societies have banned certain books. ... A lobby card for Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs. ... Looney Tunes opening title Looney Tunes is a Warner Brothers animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theatres from 1930 to 1969. ... Merrie Melodies end title Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. ... Charles Ellis Chuck Schumer (born November 23, 1950) is a Jewish American politician. ... DansGuardian blocking whitehouse. ... A chilling effect is a situation where speech or conduct is suppressed or limited by fear of penalization at the hands of an individual or group. ... Cindys Torment, a graphic sex story published in Spring of 1990 on Usenet, led to an early example of censorship in cyberspace. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... DansGuardian blocking whitehouse. ... Death Whoop was an oil on canvas painting by Seth Eastman that depicted a Native American warrior holding up the scalp of a white victim. ... An edited movie or edited film is a film that has been edited from the original theatrical release. ... Dr. Elsebeth Baumgartner, age 50 (as of 2006), is a former attorney and current CEO of Cleveland Genomics, Inc. ... The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that applies and enforces ratings, advertising guidelines, and online privacy principles for computer and video games and other entertainment software in the United States and Canada (officially adopted by individual provinces 2004-2005). ... This article is about the novel. ... FREEMUSE - THE WORLD FORUM ON MUSIC AND CENSORSHIP is an independent international organization advocating freedom of expression for musicians and composers worldwide. ... Freedom of speech is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations. ... In political parlance, a gatekeeper or left gatekeeper is an activist or organization that acts within the larger milieu of a political movement, in order to manage, constrain and co-opt the movement, often on behalf of the Establishment opponents of that movement. ... Venetiis, M. D. LXIIII. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books) is a list of publications which the Catholic Church censored for being a danger to itself and the faith of its members. ... The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic Church (see Terminology below) is the Christian Church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI. It traces its origins and sees itself as the true Church founded by Jesus of Nazareth and maintained through Apostolic Succession from the Twelve... International Freedom of Expression eXchange. ... For other persons of the same name, see Jack Thompson. ... Joseph Isadore Joe Lieberman (born February 24, 1942) is a Jewish American politician from Connecticut and a leading member of the anti-Palestinian lobby. ... John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 8, 1873), an English philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. ... Lady Chatterleys Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence written in 1928. ... Yees mugs-hot from 1992 robbery Leland Y. Yee is a California Assemblyman in the 12th district, which includes San Francisco, California. ... Media controversy is controversy involving forms of media, especially electronic media. ... Media Transparency is the concept of determining how and why information is conveyed through various means. ... The MPAA film rating system is a system used in the United States and instituted by the Motion Picture Association of America to rate a movie based on its content. ... The NEA Four, Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes, were performance artists whose proposed grants from the United States governments National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) were vetoed by John E. Frohnmayer in June 1990. ... Nineteen Eighty-Four (commonly abbreviated to 1984) is a dystopian novel by the English writer George Orwell, first published by Secker and Warburg in 1949. ... A police state is a political condition where the government maintains strict control over society, particularly through suspension of civil rights and often with the use of a force of secret police. ... Prior restraint is a legal term referring to a governments actions that prevent materials from being published. ... The Production Code (also known as the Hays Code) was a set of industry guidelines governing the production of American motion pictures. ... Project Censored is a non-profit, sociological project of an investigative nature within the Sonoma State University Foundation. ... SourceWatchs logo features a magnifying glass through which its name can be seen. ... Standards and Practices is the name traditionally given to the department at a television network which is responsible for the moral, ethical and legal implications of the program that network airs -- in the vernacular, the censors. Categories: Stub ... The Parents Television Council (PTC) is a US-based nonprofit organization. ... Janet Jackson performs at the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show. ... Thomas Bowdler (July 11, 1754 – February 24, 1825), an English physician, who published The Family Shakespeare, is best known as the source of the eponym bowdlerize (or bowdlerise[1]), the process of expurgation, censorship by removal, of material thought to be unacceptable to the intended audience, especially children or religious... The Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG) is a coalition of 15 free expression organisations that belong to the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a global network of non-governmental organisations that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press. ... A television rating system is a method of giving television viewers an idea of the suitability of a television program for children and/or adults. ... V-chip is a generic term used for a feature of television receivers allowing the blocking of programs based on their ratings category. ... Mary Whitehouse in her later years. ... Censorship is the systematic use of group power to broadly control freedom of speech and expression, largely in regard to secretive matters. ... Obscurantism in its current usage can imply one of two separate concepts, sometimes distinguished by capitalization: // The older sense of the term Obscurantism refers to a class of philosophies that favor limits on the extension and dissemination of scientific knowledge, believing it to be the enemy of faith. ...

Notes

References

Image:J Butler. ... Michel Foucault (IPA pronunciation: ; English-speakers pronunciation varies) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher. ... World Book Encyclopedia is, according to its publisher in the United States, the number-one selling print encyclopedia in the world. ...

External links

World Wide Web links

• Olympic Watch (Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games in a Free and Democratic Country) on censorship in China
• irrepressible.info - Amnesty International's campaign against internet repression
• The 15 enemies of the Internet and other countries to watch
• www.beepworld.de/members/press-freedom Press Freedom International
• 1990 audio interview of William Noble, author of Book Banning. Interview by Don Swaim of CBS Radio. RealAudio
• Sexual Morality and the Law. The only online transcription of Foucault's text as of July 2006.
• Uncyclopedia's entry on freedom of expression
• Specific Sites Excluded from Google.fr and or Google.de.
• Numerous pictures of Iranian censorship in the western magazines The Economist, Wallpaper and National Geographic Magazine

Freenet links

• The Cleanex Experiment Program introducing censorship on Freenet.
• Choron Repository for banned French books and other documents.
• Choron Repository for banned English books and other documents.