Europeans don't have or understand free speech

I think he sort of assumes that there are things you can post on Facebook/Twitter in the US, with no real consequences, but not in Europe. AFAICT the people in the European city where I live generally expect that they can post anything on Facebook/Twitter with no significant consequences.

They can't. In the next largish city to the southeast someone did post whatever he wanted, got dragged into court and ended up having to pay, even for the retweets. But he did not expect that and that's significant. His understanding of free speech was that he could post whatever he wanted, and the local reaction in that city showed that many, perhaps most people were as surprised as he was.

So I don't understand what aspect of free speech people in the US understand that Europeans don't.

The article kinda stumbles. Starts with a popular premise (“free speech = good”) then makes the (data-supported but not cited) connection between dissent and outcome, but really doesn’t make an argument for why we should prefer one outcome over the other (eg, leaves as an assumption what Europe should be, what the unifying culture of Europe and America is and that it ought to be preserved). Sure, we don’t want violence, but violence is inevitable in change, and the writer never discusses either whether a changing Europe is a good thing or why it might not be, simply assuming that it isn’t and that the reader will agree. The writer also never considers the fact that plenty of violence will come from a change of policy, both at home and abroad, and violence always leaks across borders, as Americans well know.

The United States ranks 55 on the World Press Freedom Index. The top 10 countries including Germany are ALL in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index

So much for freedom in the US.

So talking about abortion isn't free speech?

Really? "Free" speech in the USA costs an awful lot these days.

https://apnews.com/article/abc-trump-lawsuit-defamation-step...

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/492499-trump-campaign-...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/judge-fi...

I don't know what Sweden he has lived in, but me who has lived in Sweden through the 90s, 00s and 10s, I feel that practically the only thing people want to talk about is problems with immigration.

In relation to digging into a major economic shift during thee 30 years, moving Sweden from being one of the most egalitarian societies to consistently having an increasing economic gap.

This continues with the last budget, again giving tax cuts to, not salary work, but dividents. "But isn't Sweden a high tax society", well, it still a quite high tax on work, but all other type of taxes has been remove or dramatically decreased (inheritance tax, gift tax, property tax, corporate tax, divident tax). So it is increasingly cheaper to earn money on others work (also your parents), but if cant afford to invest you will a hard time actually working yourself up by just putting hours in. But hey, the problem is just "immigration" and that people cant talk about it (even though the only thing people talk about is just that).

Another red-pilled immigrant millionaire repeating the usual tired talking points. Just like Fox News and the rest of the right wing media, this kind of thing panders and assumes Americans don't know anything about the rest of the world, other than people not lucky enough to live in the USA have it much worse. Thanks for the original thoughts.