What is the purpose of censorship?

So what is the purpose of censorship?  It is to filter out some of the things thats are deemed to the explicit, it is to make sure the media doesn't offend any people or groups that may view the media.

There are 3 main examples of censorship:

The Hays Code

The Hays Code (The motion picture production code) was introduced in 1920. It was set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1920 to 1968. The code was made to prevent people using the media to effect the public and prevent any possible harm that could come from abusing the media.

The code was based on three general principles:

-No picture shall be produced thats will lower moral standards of those who see it, hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin
-Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
-Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

There is a whole list of things that isn't acceptable:
-methods of smuggling
-prostitution
-rape
-selling drugs
-scenes of childbirth
-theft/robbery
-surgical operations
-etc...

Music Videos

In music videos theres a set of guidelines which has to be followed.

To make it suitable for as many people as possible, if the music video swears it will be removed either by bleeping it out or cutting the sound of
Another way to make it sensible, is censoring sexual imagery, many distributors wont't allow nudity within videos. On radio and T.V channels swearing is removed until 9pm, this called the watershed when swearing and sexual imagery on T.V is allowed after 9pm...

Watershed
The watershed is used for T.V media which is displayed after a set time. The watershed starts at 9pm, it is made so that young members of a T.V audience won't see something which isn't suitable for them but for the older members. This is because of imitation as they don't want them to copy things on screen as it's considered inappropriate.