Advertisin Anne Applebaum's The Decline Of American Press Freedom

When people hear the word freedom, all kinds of definitions and perceptions come to mind. The most common definition is the given right to say and do anything. This definition is too vague and can be interpreted the wrong way, so there should be some restrictions on what people say and do. Any act that is illegal or life-threatening should never be justified when someone uses their right to freedom. However, restrictions such as censorship, political correctness, and behavioral advertising all take away the right to freedom from everyone. These restrictions are understandable and reasonable to a fault, but can go too far. Censorship and political correctness will silence people entirely and behavioral advertising invades privacy with stalking, thus taking away someone’s freedom to use the internet without judgment. Censorship, political correctness, and behavioral …show more content…
Applebaum argues that if something is not offensive, then it should be allowed to get posted and shared. The cartoon Applebaum discusses was not believed to have offended anyone let alone be viewed as dangerous or harmful. The University eventually to censor the article at the risk of allowing terrorism. Applebaum protested the censorship because the fear of publishing came only from assumption. Not only Yale, but one of the richest media companies were not willing to take the chance of offending Putin. Like a chain reaction, other companies jumped on the self-censorship bandwagon and refused to publish anything that could potentially offend. This shows how desperate companies and organizations are to protect their image, even at the cost of possibly saying what people need to hear. The students at Yale were basically told that they do not have the freedom to post something as seemingly harmful as a