Is 2025 the New ‘1984’? Modern Writers Warn Censorship Could Get Much Worse

Seventy-six years after George Orwell’s 1984 was first published, his nightmarish vision of a world controlled by surveillance, propaganda, and censorship feels chillingly relevant again. The 2025 theme for Banned Books Week — “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” — highlights how rapidly society is sliding toward a world Orwell once imagined as fiction.

According to PEN America, more than 3,700 unique titles were banned during the 2024–2025 school year, totaling nearly 6,900 recorded bans. That’s more than double the number just three years ago. The group’s report warns that book banning is becoming “normalized,” shifting from isolated incidents to a widespread cultural movement that threatens freedom of expression.

Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed, puts it bluntly:

“If we’re not careful, it might not simply be your book being banned — it might be you arrested for writing it.”

Smith’s statement, echoed by other writers and scholars, underscores a growing fear that restrictions on ideas today could morph into criminalization tomorrow.

Reading Orwell Then vs. Now

For many, 1984 was once a cautionary tale about faraway regimes. Professor Laura Beers, author of Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century, recalls first reading the novel in the 1990s, when it was seen as a warning against Soviet totalitarianism. Yet Orwell’s message, she says, was never confined to one political system.

“Orwell was concerned about censorship everywhere — both abroad and at home,” Beers explains.

Michael Shelden, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of George Orwell: The Authorized Biography, agrees. When he first read the book more than 50 years ago, Orwell’s broader purpose stood out:

“He wasn’t just criticizing the Soviet Union. He was warning against any society that thinks it can control thought.”

Clint Smith says his early reading of 1984 now feels naïve. In high school, he saw it as pure fiction — something that could never happen in America. But as he grew to understand how fragile democracy can be, his view changed:

“What seemed impossible then feels alarmingly plausible now,” he says.

The New Face of Censorship

Modern censorship in the U.S. doesn’t always take the form of a dictator’s decree — it can look like community-level book bans, school curriculum restrictions, or subtle pressures to self-censor.

Beers warns that Orwell’s concept of “Newspeak” — controlling language to control thought — is creeping into daily life.

“If there are things you can’t say, there are things you can’t think,” she notes.

She points out the irony that a few years ago, conservatives decried “cancel culture” from the left, but today, many of those same voices are leading book removals and speech restrictions from positions of power.

“That would not surprise Orwell,” she adds. “He believed any ideology could become tyrannical if given too much control.”

Shelden expands on this by emphasizing the psychological impact of censorship:

“We’re in a world now where people censor themselves for fear of offending others — or worse, offending those in power. That’s the most dangerous kind of control because it lives inside your mind.”

Self-censorship, he says, is the modern version of 1984’s “thoughtcrime.” When fear prevents people from speaking freely, innovation and dissent die alongside open discourse.

How Bad Can It Get?

Smith believes the current climate is only the beginning.

“It can get much worse than it is now,” he warns. “History shows that government efforts to surveil, control, and propagandize grow over time if not met with public resistance.”

He stresses that the danger lies not only in which books are being banned but in why they are being banned — often because they challenge the dominant narrative about race, gender, or history.

“If we’re not forceful in defending the right to read and write freely,” Smith says, “we risk a much more draconian future.”

This echoes Orwell’s greatest warning: once the state (or society at large) dictates what people can think or say, truth itself becomes a casualty.

What Does “Orwellian” Really Mean?

The word “Orwellian” is often misused to describe any form of censorship or social backlash. But Beers clarifies that Orwell was describing something far darker — the repressive power of the state.

“Being kicked off Twitter isn’t Orwellian,” she says. “Having your book unpublished because a company disagrees with you isn’t Orwellian either. True Orwellianism is when people risk imprisonment or death for their speech.”

And increasingly, she warns, that line is being approached in parts of the world — and, worryingly, echoed in U.S. rhetoric around journalists, immigrants, and educators.

Shelden echoes this sentiment:

“A society that doesn’t have free thought doesn’t have anything. Without dissent, there’s no creativity, no faith, no progress. When you can’t speak your mind, you might as well not have one.”

Lessons from Orwell’s Ghost

Orwell’s 1984 remains a mirror for every generation, reflecting how power and fear intertwine. The authors interviewed agree that the book’s power lies not in predicting the future but in warning that it can always happen here — if people stop paying attention.

Book bans, digital surveillance, and ideological policing are not just policy debates; they are tests of democracy itself. When language is manipulated and ideas are erased, freedom becomes a performance rather than a principle.

The current rise in censorship may not yet match Orwell’s world of “Big Brother,” but it signals the same core danger: control disguised as protection.

As Clint Smith reminds us, “We have to name it, call it out, and fight it — because silence is the first step toward the world Orwell feared.”

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