This article is about the graphical editing/censorship technique. For the undesirable phenomenon in which individual pixels are visible, see Pixelation. For the stop motion animation technique, see Pixilation. This article on image censorship does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008) Part of a series on Censorship By media Banned books · Banned films Re-edited film · Internet Motion Picture Production Code Music · Press · Radio · Thought Speech and expression Video games Anime distribution in America Methods Bleeping · Book burning Broadcast delay · Chilling effect Conspiracy of silence Content-control software Euphemism · Expurgation Gag order · Heckling Memory hole · Newspaper theft Pixelization · Postal · Prior restraint Propaganda model Revisionism · Sanitization/Redaction Self-censorship · Speech code Strategic lawsuit · Verbal offence Whitewashing Contexts Corporate · Political · Religious Ideological · Criminal speech Hate speech · Media bias Suppression of dissent By country Censorship · Freedom of speech v · d · e

Pixelization is a video- and image-editing technique in which an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorship. The effect is a standard graphics filter, available in all but the most basic bitmap graphics editors. Contents 1 Pixelization as censorship 2 Pixelization in media 3 Alternative techniques 4 International legal standards 5 See also 6 References Pixelization as censorship Pixelization was used to anonymize this photograph. A familiar example of pixelization can be found in television news and documentary productions, in which vehicle license plates and faces of suspects at crime scenes are routinely obscured to maintain the presumption of innocence, as in the television series COPS. Bystanders and others who do not sign release forms are also customarily pixelated. Footage of nudity (including genitalia, buttocks, or breasts) is likewise obscured in some media: before the watershed in many countries, in newspapers or general magazines, or in places in which the public cannot avoid seeing the image (such as on billboards). Drug references, as well as gestures considered obscene (such as the finger) may also be censored in this manner. Pixelization is not usually used for this purpose in films, DVDs, subscription television services, pornography (except for countries in which the law requires it). When obscene language is censored by an audible bleep, the mouth of the speaker may be pixelated to prevent lip reading.

Pixelization may also be used to avoid unintentional product placement, or to hide elements that would date a broadcast, such as date and time stamps on home video submissions. Censorship for such purposes is most common on reality television series.citation needed Pixelization in media Pixelization has also been used for artistic effect, notably in the art print The Wave of the Future, a reinterpretation of Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave at Kanagawa. In this updated print, the image of the large ocean wave shifts from the traditional style of the Japanese woodcut print to a pixelated image and finally to a wireframe model computer graphics image.12 Westworld (1973) was the first feature film to use digital image processing to pixelate photography to simulate an android's point of view. Alternative techniques

For many censorship purposes, pixelization has been supplanted by blurring the image, or black rectangular or square boxes (known as censor bars) may be used to cover parts of images completely (for example, a black box inserted over the eyes rather than pixelization of the entire face). A drawback of pixelization is that any differences between the large pixels can be exploited in moving images to reconstruct the original, unpixelated imagecitation needed; squinting at a pixelated, moving image can sometimes achieve a similar result. In both cases, integration of the large pixels over time allows smaller, more accurate pixels to be constructed in a still image result. Completely obscuring the censored area with pixels of a constant color or pixels of random colors escapes this drawback but can be more aesthetically jarring. International legal standards

Nudity is obscured on network television in the United States. Japanese pornography laws require that genitals in films (including animated works) be obscured. In Thailand, restrictions are placed on television broadcast depiction of cigarettes being smoked,3 alcohol being consumed, or guns being pointed at people. Pixelization is the most common method of censoring this content. See also Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pixelization Reverse video Tape delay (broadcasting) References Look up pixelization or pixelisation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ^ vorpal.us: "Wave of the Future is now the Past." Retrieved July 13, 2009 ^ vorpal.us: "High resolution image of "Wave of the Future"." Retrieved July 14, 2009 ^ 2Bangkok.com: "Smoking on Thai TV" Retrieved February 15, 2007