Censorship and the Freedom of Press

This is what it has come to people. We are on the verge of Communism .

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Freedom of information, speech and the press is firmly rooted in the structures of modern western democratic thought. With limited restrictions, every capitalist democracy has legal provisions protecting these rights. Even the UN Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the general assembly in 1948 declares "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" (although as Article 19, it comes after the right to hold property, be married and hold a nationality, among others). As such, western ethics heavily favor the nearly unfettered rights to speech, press and information. Such rights might be tailored to protect state security from a Lockesian social contract perspective, but a Kantian categorical outlook surely provides for a society in which everyone can speak freely is better to one in which no one can speak freely.