Free Speech Is Under Attack in the U.S., but It's on the Ropes Elsewhere

“Even open democracies have implemented restrictive measures,” finds a global report.

If you think free speech is under attack in the United States—and it is—you should see its besieged status in the rest of the world. Open contempt for unrestricted debate prevails in even many supposedly "free" countries and finds its expression in laws that threaten harsh penalties for those who dare to speak in ways that offend the powers that be.

Contempt for Free Speech

"When other communications revolutions like the printing press, radio, and television came along, they were still largely controlled by the elites. But when the internet came along, regulatory bodies like Canada's [Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission] backed off," Lawrence Martin of Canada's The Globe and Mail recently complained while celebrating what he saw as rare U.S. Supreme Court openness to letting government pressure social media companies into suppressing speech. "It was open season for anything that anyone wanted to put out. No license needed. No identity verification."

"The way to reverse the trend is with rigid regulation, but the free speech lobby in the United States is as fierce as the gun lobby," Martin mourned.

Too bad for Martin. But few countries share America's resistance to censorship (and restrictions on self-defense). That's certainly the case in Canada, where the ruling Liberal Party is pushing Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, to regulate speech on the internet.

Proliferating Attacks on Expression

"Bill C-63 risks censoring a range of expression from journalistic reporting to healthy conversations among youth under 18 about their own sexuality and relationships," warns the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. "The bill imposes draconian penalties for certain types of expression, including life imprisonment for a very broad and vaguely defined offence of 'incitement to genocide', and 5 years of jail time for other broadly defined speech acts."

Ireland is going a step further, with lawmakers working on legislation that would outlaw merely "preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics."

"One of the fundamental rights protected under the Irish Constitution is the right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions," barrister (lawyer) Grace Sullivan told the Irish Independent. But under the proposed law, it will be an offence to "incite hatred" but "there is no clear definition of what 'inciting hatred' means," she cautioned.

Scotland, for its part, has already enacted a "hate crime" law targeting speech that authorities believe might "stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to" a laundry list of characteristics including race, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and age.

"The Hate Crime Bill will come into force on April 1, expanding existing legislation to cover comments made in private settings without the intention to offend," Laura Pollock reported last week for The National. She noted police assurances that comedians and actors won't be targeted for their performances, even though such situations were included in training materials.

"The training material was based on the Scottish Government's explanatory notes which accompany the legislation," Police Scotland soothed. "This included examples of a range of scenarios where offences might take place, but this does not mean officers have been told to target these situations or locations."

Unfortunately, restrictive legislation and hollow assurances by the authorities that they'll use their authoritarian powers wisely are far more the global norm than are American-style protections for speech. We complain about government attempts to muzzle, but open censorship is increasingly common in other countries.

"The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges in 2023," according to The Free Speech Recession Hits Home, a report by The Future of Free Speech, Danish think tank Justitia, and Aarhus University's Department of Political Science.* "Even open democracies have implemented restrictive measures."

The report surveys speech regulations in 22 democracies since 2015 and finds a grim situation. Besides the examples above, there is Australia's crackdown on alleged disinformation, the UK's Online Safety Bill, the European Union's Digital Services Act, Denmark's revived blasphemy ban, Italy's libel judgments against government critics, France's and Germany's restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests, and more.

Across the countries surveyed, "except for 2015, every year witnessed a majority of developments limiting expression, with a noticeable upsurge in 2022," notes the report. "National security, national cohesion and public safety were the most cited reasons for limiting expression…. Intermediary obligations and hate speech laws accounted for 18.3% and 17.8% of restrictions, respectively, with notable implications in countries like Norway, Denmark, and Spain." As defined in the report, "intermediary obligations" are duties imposed on platforms, such as Facebook, to act as proxy censors.

On the plus side were some strengthened protections for press freedom and protest. Of course, the press must operate under all those restrictions on "hate speech," and protests are subject to curbs when governments find their subjects too sensitive or just inconvenient.

America's Protections Against the Censors

The Free Speech Recession Hits Home records attacks on free speech in the U.S., as elsewhere. But this country, importantly, has a strong free speech culture and real constitutional protections. America is third on Justitia's index of public support for free speech (after Norway and Denmark), and restrictive laws and government schemes to suppress speech are often voided on First Amendment grounds.

That's no guarantee that every attempt to muzzle the public will fail or that the courts will diligently apply the First Amendment. But it's enough of an advantage to dishearten the world's would-be censors.

"The genie is already out of the bottle and there is little likelihood of getting it back in," moans The Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin about U.S. speech protections. "The greater likelihood is that extremes of free speech will continue to be tolerated."

Let's hope the unhappy authoritarian columnist is right that the U.S. will remain a bastion of protection for free speech. Because nobody else looks eager to take on that responsibility.

*CORRECTION: The Future of Free Speech, which commissioned the report, is an independent think tank located at Vanderbilt University.