Prior restraint, a kind of censorship, allows the government to review the content of printed materials and restrict their distribution.
Most scholars believe that the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedom includes a prohibition on earlier restraints. The government may put restrictions on speech that make it harder for it to occur or outright prohibit public circulation of media. Prior constraint might be anything as innocent-seeming as a local rule limiting where newspapers can be sold.
Prior constraint, also known as prior censorship or pre-publication censorship, is restriction of expression that forbids specific forms of expression and is typically applied by a government or organisation.
