ABSTRACT

This case study will analyze writer Chris Cali’s April 13, 2017 opinion article about Trump supporters that was removed from the Huffington Post. The title of the article was “Trump Supporters Deserve to Die More Than I Do”. This article was taken down a few days later but was archived to be used for later use. Cali had the right to create and post this article under the First Amendment which protected the use of free speech. The First Amendment “guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition” (www.law.cornell.edu). Posting negative articles about people is nothing new and part of the human expression of free speech and should not be censored unless they go against the website’s guidelines for posting opinion articles. To find out if this action was deemed ethical, the TARES Test will be used. The TARES Test is a method of evaluation the five principals of ethical persuasion: truthfulness, authenticity, respect, equity, and social responsibility in order to be determine if altering or removing news articles is ethical or not. This will provide a concise conclusion to the ethical situation that Huffington Post and Chris Cali have put themselves in.