Europe's Free-Speech Problem
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Just to be clear, I agree with everything you said. I just think "freedom of speech" shares a lot of issues with things like "communism" when put into practice by eminently flawed humans.
She urged people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers.
> ...the administration suspended her visa and put her in immigration detention.
In that case the student was grabbed off the street by masked men (which bystanders thought was a kidnapping) and disappeared to another state (against judge's orders), kept in dire conditions, with her friends/family/lawyer initially not knowing what happened is.
In any case, people should be able to protest and should only face lawful restrictions if they cause immediate property damage (looting, burning cars, etc.), physical assault or pose an immediate danger to people or things in their immediate vicinity.
Just saying vile and disgusting things should not be a basis for prohibiting and or arresting people. If they become physically violent or threatening, then sure, arrest them. "Shitposting" on X/Twitter, etc., should not get you arrested.
People in China know the consequences of not being able to say vile and disgusting things about their own government when they crush dissent.
Of course. It is applied by humans, with all the failings that implies.
>In any case, people should be able to protest and should only face lawful restrictions if they cause immediate property damage ... Just saying vile and disgusting things should not be a basis for prohibiting and or arresting people.
That may be your viewpoint, but UK law says otherwise.
For example: The now-suspended councillor, wearing a black polo top and surrounded by cheering supporters, said: “They are disgusting Nazi fascists. We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all.” - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/15/suspended-labour... (unpaywall: https://archive.is/gT2fa)
He was charged, but the jury took little more than half an hour to reach a not guilty verdict. Speculation is that this was simple in-group preference - The trial was at Snaresbrook Crown Court, in the constituency of Leyton and Wanstead. At the 2021 Census, the white British population in Leyton and Wanstead was less than 34% of the total population. The jury likely reflected that. And such in-group preference is well documented: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/judicial-institute/sites/judicial-inst...
"Bins were set alight and pushed against fire exits"
You can yell fire in a crowded theatre. Just hope you don't cause a panic or you'll be in trouble.
But what if laws get interpreted through an ideological lens, and the person shouting happens to be a fellow member of the "Pro-Trampling Party"?
The important part is that yelling "fire" is fine if the entire theatre laughs it off.
Though moral luck is certainly a thing in general, where negligence and risk-taking is not a crime until it goes wrong.
Anything else a genuinely slippery slope.
* people can say vile racist/sexist/homophobic things.
* where the state censors what you can say.
But you pretty much have to pick one or the other. The US took the maximalist free speech approach. Europe didn't. Due to differences in culture and history. I think both are defensible on various grounds.
However successive UK governments also seem keen to restrict the right to peaceful protest. I would say that is a different thing and I'm not sure it is helpful to conflate the two.
The definitions of what speech falls under "racist/sexist/homophobic things" tends to be highly subjective and varies between who you ask and who's in power, which means they instantly become hammers of those in power to suppress speech of the opposing camp.
It's basically tools for selective enforcement and will 100% gonna be abused because those in power can never be handed a powerful weapon and expect to never misuse it for personal gains.
Like for example, during Democrat rule, before Elon bought Twitter and before Trump came to power, it was considered homophobic to say there are only two genders, or to even ask how many genders there are, and could get you banned on Twitter and other major platforms. Pointing out crime statistics on illegal migrants was considered racism, and so on.
So once you brush everything you don't like under the "racist/sexist/homophobic" speech, you've successfully achieved totalitarian rule while cosplaying as protecting democracy, which is what Europe is trying to do.
For example, repeatedly asking how many genders there are ignores the obvious 'its a continuum' and implies its a finite number. The person asking almost always then goes on to push that there's two because that's "how its always been" and then folks can't get gender affirming care are are essentially classified as "nonexistent".
The right, being rooted in conservatism, loves to ressurect old arguments in the name of " just asking questions" and have the rest of us redo the battles of old. For example, race science is discredited pseudoscience, there's no need to keep bringing it up unless you're trying to use it for, imo nefarious, political means.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/sexual-orientation-and-gender-ident...
Also you can have people who develop to look like completely normal adult females, but are actually biologically male.
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001669.htm
It's complicated.
Versus how many people identify as intersex. You'd think it's half the internet based on how religious people are about this topic.
Even in the US the constitution says the government can't pass laws against free speech, not that you can say anything without getting into trouble. See Rumeysa Ozturk for example detained for six weeks for writing an op ed criticising Israel.
It should be noted that being the one to define what "democracy itself" means comes with great advantages. It has little to do with what the people want (what one might naively think "democracy" means) - no no, that is "populism". "Protect democracy", rarely (if ever) means free elections, free speech, or the right to oppose government. What it means is more censorship.
> Europeans might retort that the American system, too, has failed to stop threats to freedom of expression.
As a European, it brings me no comfort that free speech is in peril even in the US.
Now, people may agree with the censorship, never the less it is censorship and looking back it was unproductive and now the establishment has lost many regular people who now distrust “the science.”
The Canadian truckers could be dicks if they wanted to, that's no good reason to de-bank people en-masse.
Suppose the police were targeting red cars and were pulling them over and you have a red car and your retort is, I have a red car and also saw other red cars not getting pulled over, therefore everything is alright.
Free speech doesn't mean that any obviously false viewpoint is considered as just as valid as the reasonable viewpoints.
Understatement of the year, I think Americans don't grasp how much of a clown show their government offers to the rest of the world these days.
I've yet to met a normal person mention how worried they are about our relationship with Europeans.
The tagline even talks about republicans doing the criticizing. Truly a work of art.