Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own and not necessarily those of Bookstr.
We joke about how The Simpsons predicted smartwatches and presidential elections, but George Orwell beat Matt Groening to the prophecy game by decades — and his predictions weren’t meant to be funny. When Orwell wrote 1984 in 1949, his vision of telescreens, thought police, and memory holes seemed like pure dystopian fiction. Now, as someone who values privacy and grew up believing in the fundamental right to read freely, I find myself living in that world he warned us about.
We can easily buy 1984 — the irony cuts deep that we have access to the book warning us about thought control while living in the world it predicted. The surveillance and censorship mechanisms Orwell described aren’t coming; they’re here. Meanwhile, thousands of other books face removal from libraries and public institutions across the globe, proving that the principles Orwell explored about information control have become the blueprint for modern resistance.
Trigger Warning: This article contains a brief mention of police violence. Please engage in self-care as you read.
The Truth About How Modern Censorship Works
I think it’s important to understand that today’s censorship landscape goes way beyond dramatic book burnings — though those still happen too. The methods vary by country, but the goal remains universal: controlling what people can think by controlling what they can read. And honestly, some of these methods would make Orwell’s Ministry of Truth jealous.
China has perfected comprehensive digital surveillance through facial recognition cameras that track citizens, while algorithms assign social credit scores to determine who can travel or enroll children in school. WeChat conversations containing forbidden phrases simply disappear, never reaching their intended recipients. The government employs tens of thousands of content moderators removing posts within minutes. It’s efficient, I’ll give them that.
Russia operates through its Sovereign Internet Law, creating a national network that can disconnect entirely from the global internet. Independent news sites get blocked overnight, their domains redirecting to government messages about extremist content. Turkey has prosecuted over 160,000 people for insulting President Erdoğan since 2014, including a doctor who compared him to Gollum. (I have to admit that one would be funny if it weren’t so terrifying.)
Now, before anyone thinks this is just about those other countries, let me be clear: Western democracies have also built sophisticated control infrastructure. Singapore’s Fake News law grants ministers the power to order “corrections” to online content they deem false, with platforms facing massive fines for non-compliance. India has shut down internet access over 400 times since 2016 — more than any other democracy in the world. Iran uses facial recognition to identify women not wearing hijabs properly, sending automated warnings to their phones.
The UK’s Online Safety Bill requires platforms to scan private messages before they are encrypted. Australia’s Assistance and Access Act compels tech companies to build backdoors. Germany’s NetzDG law requires social media companies to remove illegal content within 24 hours or face fines up to 50 million euros.
I’m not saying these laws don’t have good intentions — protecting people from harmful content matters. However, the line between protection and control continues to shift, and that should concern all of us.
The Digital Memory Hole Is Real And Powerful
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell, 1984
Winston Smith watched his colleagues drop newspapers down memory holes, erasing inconvenient facts from history. We do the same thing, except our memory holes are digital and operate in real-time. You post something controversial on social media, then wake up to find it’s been “flagged for review” and disappeared. News articles get quietly updated overnight, changing their headlines and content without notice.
That video of police violence you shared last month? Suddenly unavailable across all platforms.
Even entertainment gets the memory hole treatment. Disney quietly altered Lilo and Stitch in digital releases, changing the scene where Lilo hides in a dryer to her hiding under a pizza box — a seemingly minor edit that erases the original version from streaming platforms. If you remember Lilo in the dryer, congratulations: your memory now contradicts the official record.
Remember when Amazon remotely deleted 1984 from Kindle devices worldwide in 2009? Readers woke to find the book had vanished overnight — a digital book burning executed with keystrokes. Amazon apologized, but the capability remains embedded in the technology.
Google’s transparency reports document over 150,000 URLs that have been requested for removal in recent years. Your search results are curated by algorithms that decide what information you’re allowed to find. Wikipedia articles get edited to reflect current political narratives. Streaming services edit content without announcement, removing scenes deemed inappropriate.
When digital records become infinitely malleable, your personal memory becomes the only reliable archive. Physical books, unchangeable once printed, retain revolutionary potential precisely because they cannot be remotely edited or deleted.
You See, Your Phone is the Modern Telescreen
“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.”
George Orwell, 1984
I’ll be honest — when I first read those lines as a teenager, Orwell’s telescreens felt like distant science fiction. Now I’m writing this article on a device that tracks my location, listens to my conversations, and knows more about my reading habits than my closest friends. My phone will suggest products or services based on my Google searches. My smart TV records conversations even when it’s turned off, and my fitness tracker knows I had trouble sleeping last night.
“There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was a matter of guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.”
George Orwell, 1984
Winston lived with the uncertainty of whether Big Brother was watching. We’ve eliminated that uncertainty — we know we’re being watched all the time, and we carry the surveillance device voluntarily. You check your phone over 100 times daily, each interaction feeding algorithms that know you better than you know yourself.
Your phone constantly tracks your location. It records ambient audio even in sleep mode. It analyzes your typing patterns to assess your mental state. Israel’s Pegasus spyware can activate cameras and microphones remotely, operating invisibly across 45 countries. You never know when you’re being watched because you’re always being watched.
Your credit card company flags certain book purchases for law enforcement. School software monitors students’ essays for concerning themes, generating alerts for administrators. Dating apps share user data with governments to identify LGBTQ individuals in places where their existence is criminalized. Algorithms analyze your social media posts to predict whether you’ll attend a protest before you’ve even decided yourself.
The Thought Police needed human agents to monitor citizens. Modern algorithms perform this function at scale, analyzing billions of posts and searches to identify problematic patterns. They don’t need to understand context — they simply correlate your behaviors with predetermined risk profiles and flag you for further attention.
When Your Words Become Unexpected Weapons
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
George Orwell, 1984
Orwell imagined a language designed to make rebellious thoughts unthinkable. We’re living it. Twitter’s character limits train us to compress complex ideas into soundbites. Hashtags reduce nuanced political positions to trending slogans. Content moderation algorithms scan for forbidden phrases and shadowban posts that contain certain combinations of words.
Chinese citizens develop elaborate codes using homonyms and historical allusions to discuss sensitive topics online. The phrase “lying flat” became a resistance movement before authorities banned it, forcing advocates to adopt increasingly obscure references. When Winnie the Pooh gets censored because citizens used it to mock their leader, you know language itself has become the battlefield.
Russian journalists describe weather patterns when they mean political climates. Poetry readings become venues for coded commentary. Turkish law deliberately defines “insult” so vaguely that citizens cannot predict what expressions might trigger prosecution. This uncertainty breeds the most effective censorship: the kind people impose on themselves.
You’ve probably felt this yourself — hesitating before posting something controversial, self-editing your thoughts for fear of consequences. When the boundaries of acceptable speech shift constantly, silence becomes the safest option. That’s not a coincidence; it’s design.
Interesting Reasons Why Certain Books Actually Terrify Authorities
Here’s what I find fascinating: the list of frequently banned books reads like a curriculum in critical thinking, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Animal Farm exposes how revolutionary ideals can corrupt into tyranny. Brave New World depicts control through pleasure rather than pain. The Handmaid’s Tale imagines women reduced to reproductive vessels. Slaughterhouse-Five fragments time to convey the psychological destruction of war. Lord of the Flies reveals humanity’s capacity for cruelty. The Giver raises questions about whether safety justifies the elimination of choice.
What these books share is not a political ideology — they come from across the spectrum. What they share is this: they refuse simple answers, demand active interpretation, and challenge readers to question authority. Their suppression across different political systems — from American school boards to Chinese censorship bureaus — tells me that power structures everywhere fear the same thing: citizens who think independently.
I believe that’s precisely why we’re seeing such fierce resistance to book banning. Underground book clubs organize in Hong Kong, sharing banned texts through encrypted channels. Russian readers drive sales of prohibited books to record levels before authorities force their removal. Iranian youth gather secretly to read translated works exploring themes their government forbids. American students transform school book bans into publicity campaigns for the very ideas authorities sought to suppress. Personally, this proves that the act of reading — especially reading challenging, uncomfortable, controversial books — remains inherently subversive.
How Books Can Empower People’s Independent Thoughts
Look, I’m not going to pretend that reading a book will overthrow authoritarian governments or solve global surveillance. However, I believe that, against this backdrop of global information control, reading banned books becomes more than an intellectual exercise — it’s an active form of resistance that transcends borders and ideologies.
People across the political spectrum have concerns about different types of books. In my view, we can all agree that preserving access to challenging ideas matters for humans to flourish. The age at which we read them will always be a topic of debate. When we lose the ability to read and consider diverse perspectives, we lose the capacity to think critically about our world. Avoiding difficult realities prevents us from making decisions based on the full picture.
This is why I believe libraries and independent bookstores should fight to keep diverse voices on their shelves and deserve our support. It’s why organizations defending intellectual freedom matter more than ever.
Read Boldly, Think Freely
As adults with the freedom to choose our own reading material, I think we have both the opportunity and responsibility to engage with challenging ideas. Consider picking up a banned book — perhaps starting with 1984 if you haven’t read it, or revisiting it if you have. Notice how eerily relevant it feels. You might then explore other frequently challenged titles like Fahrenheit 451, Beloved, The Kite Runner, or Thirteen Reasons Why.
Beyond just reading them, consider discussing them with others. Share quotes that resonate. Explore why these books make some people uncomfortable. Challenge yourself to understand perspectives that differ from your own. Question everything, including your own assumptions. The message written on walls during Brazil’s military dictatorship still resonates with me: “They can cut all the flowers, but they cannot stop the spring.” Censorship may be “so 1984,” but so is the recognition that human creativity, curiosity, and courage consistently find ways to circumvent control. The future Orwell feared hasn’t fully arrived, and preventing its arrival requires vigilance from all of us. Your mind remains the one place Big Brother cannot reach. Make it count.
Looking for more books that challenge the status quo? Check out our controversial classics that shaped literary history.
Explore our curated Bookshop banned book collection of books that dare to ask difficult questions.
