For example, if you can say a thing, but someone with more money or influence can say the opposite thing so loud that no one can hear you, do you really have a voice? Yes, you have free speech in that you don't get retribution from the government, but you surely don't have fair speech. Effectively you have no voice.
If only your local independent reporter carries a story, and none of the major players do because they coordinate to limit what you see, do you have free speech in practice? When maybe 1% of the population hears the independent reporters, and 99% just listen to the propaganda?
Also as others have said, letting people have free reign to spread both home grown and foreign propaganda is pretty naive and as we've seen in the last several years, has a huge impact.
This is not to advocate for banning speech like you see in many authoritarian governments, but the west needs to be smarter and think deeper about what free speech actually means. At what volume do you get to speak? What consequences to your speech are allowed vs forbidden? Who gets a voice, citizens, everyone in the world including foreign adversaries? Who gets to speak anonymously? Everyone? Just citizens
Read up on the founding of the US and who funded printing all the propaganda flyers, newspapers, and pamphlets. That stuff wasn't cheap back then!
So yes, you have free speech if major news players coordinate whatever. If on social networks you get banned. Absolutely. That's problem 1 for authoritarian regimes. This is not something any authoritarian nation will relent on even slightly.
Second they have a problem with there being any "players" at all. Because you do get different perspectives, most of which don't match the governments. Compare the news in Israel with the "news" in Russia, or with Al Jazeera and you will see the difference. In Israel, there's maybe 5 major channels. But they hate each other. Pro and contra the war perspectives are represented. In Russia, there is no anti-war perspective. In Al Jazeera there is no one questioning how the government is spending money, there is no discussion on viewpoints, on anything in the middle east. There is no discussion of corruption either, in either Russia or Qatar. None.
This illustrates the problem of propaganda: everyone knows it's bullshit. Every Russian knows Russia is less democratic than a US TSA inspection. Everyone knows everything in Qatar is entirely, 100%, corrupt.
Propaganda will fail, certainly in the eyes of the government, if there is some, any way to get real information. And it doesn't matter if it's not easy. This is how it's always been in the US, because now people have some seriously rose colored glasses on how "true" US newspapers were in the early parts of the 20th century. Reality is that in the US bullshit always dominated the news cycle. This is not new.
Some might say, you can publish elsewhere on your own domain, but again, it's like barricading the public square and only allowing one to speak in the middle of a forest; if no one but the trees listen, what is the point of the natural right to free speech?
This is a ridiculous assertion.
The local Costco is "at such a scale in the modern day" that it, too, is essentially a public square. It's still private property, though. If you show up in Aisle 6 trying to convert people to Mormonism, a Costco employee will ask you to leave and stop harassing their customers. Yes, the same principle applies to Twitter, Facebook, X, Truth Social and Instagram.
But it's not at such a scale though. It does not have one location with billions of members.
What gives you the right to leverage their private property as your soapbox? Because people on the sidewalk won't listen, and that hurts your feelings? They have a business, if you are using your speech in any way to obstruct the conduct of their thoroughfare then they can have you ejected. The cops will not listen to your tirade against multinational burger tyrants, they'll drop you off at the drunk tank. Your speech will never be unconditionally protected, not online or in real life.
As always, refer to the relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/
With your linking of that xkcd, it's clear you're misunderstanding my point about legal vs natural rights, as I stated initially.
IMO the bigger problem is the total lack of a public square these days.
The internet is more pseudonymous than we’re used to dealing with, compared to the in-person public square. People behave in ways that would normally cause their acquiescences to use their freedom of association, and avoid them. Online attempts at a public square tend to be pretty annoying, as a result.
Freedom of speech is great, but not if its used by your neighbours to stir up trouble. (the civil war was long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_Civil_War)
One thing the "west" ie the USA needs to understand (well they'll know very shortly) is that the right to consume propaganda from your countries enemies is not the same as being able to criticise your government for doing a bad job/breaking the law/killing it's own citizens.
Facebook et al is not a neutral platform, it is a vector for other states, and non state actors to whip up outrage and division.
> many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat
Yup, because it is a threat.
see Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia to name just a few. all have had large scale unrest transmitted and amplfied by facebook. Now are they nice governments? no. did facebook help bring democracy? also no, they helped pinpoint activists and let the government(s) kidnap them.
The indian anti-muslim movement is properly being whipped up by the BJP and others, using facebook to get to the people that don't have TVs. Facebook is a big part in why they are still in power.
The "export" version... not so much.
I would feel better about this type of activity being regulated. There is quite a bit of room for facebook to live up to higher standards and regulation to prevent that sort of behavior with out banning.
Might also be more a of a hassle to write and enforce the laws though than out right banning though.
The result of that for a country with a small market though might be facebook/similar voluntarily leaving the country/market though.
People get worked up about "hate speech" a very arbitrary thing, that changes over time, but they don't realize the slippery slope that creates if you try to police speech.
The things I've seen Australians and even British people arrested for posting or commenting on online is absurd. The people who support it are fine with it, until they're the ones being reported and getting into trouble, and handcuffed for making a one off remark that otherwise seemed innocent at the time.
Remember, these governments eventually can and will use AI models to monitor your speech. People around the world should seriously advocate for free speech more now than ever.
Also remember, the key thing in America about free speech is that the government has no say in what speech is allowed. You still have consequences for your speech from others.
What part of the President threatening financial sanctions and jail time for speech makes you think we have this?
To the degree the American experiment has shown anything about free speech, it’s that it may not work uncensored broadly. At the end of the day, we voted against it.
And it’s causing lots of problems with questionable benefit. Millions of people with no medical training and the critical thinking skills of a first generation LLM debating vaccines online is not productive.
We also see it with judges. Our system isn't perfect, but it allows for people who strongly believe a law is unjust to step in.
He mentioned wanting to move to the US. I assumed smugly “must be for our business environment or contractual benefits” and said as much.
He quickly responded with his concerns about being arrested for social media posts, and mentioned how many people were being arrested in the UK.
No discussion of anything about where he was on the political spectrum or anything; he was leading with this issue.
When it becomes an issue like this, we’re going to see talent flight to more favorable climates
I sincerely hope we see other countries adopt our original intent on free speech as law of their lands.
The "free speech" of tech platforms also comes with colonial power structures in which the tech company makes these decisions and imposes them on countries.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/14/the-brazilian-...
Democracy/free speech/human rights are tools for west, not a moral high ground. Hypocrisy at its peak. :)
Come on, we're living in extremely authoritian governments that pretend to be something else.
We had freedom of speech in the west before the Internet. That speech was not anonymous.
You'll try and get people against wars fired.
Post your name right now. Real name and address. If that's what you want, right?
Which is unsurprising.
Your point gives the authoritian the ability to use "the red scare" as tactic to ensure no subversives appear. No one to challenge their power. We must monitor all to find "the infiltrated enemy".
Your bullshit is not new. It's been done all throughout history and it's always just an excuse to suppress threats to individual power. Political parties are proscribed because "they're working for foreign actors and we deem them to be treasonous".
... you mean late night comedians I'm guessing?
Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
That's disingenous bullshit. From the likes of people who use their power imbalance to pretend their propaganda is truth and dissent is dangerous.
"Freedom of speech is ok but what you're doing is different" is the first step
> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
You only need to pay attention to history to see what political totalitarianism means when there's no anonymity.
It's way worse than online trolls.
> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
Said the dictator, who was accountable to no one. Those who hold the power shield themselves from accountability and want to use it as an excuse to prevent dissent.
Secondly: I think you are happy to not being the target of online violence. I have experience with teens on the brink of suicide caused by it.
Try some other shitty propaganda.
Did he fall out of a window?
Go google "disappeared people in military dictatorships" and maybe, just maybe, you'll learn something about authoritians and how they dealt with "subversives".
Not everyone here lives in the US.
Your account is 17 hours old and you want to find the "enemy within". Aren't you the enemy within?
Demosntate you're not a foreign actor, according to your own rules, post your full name and address. Or maybe that's a stupid thing to do and anonymity is valuable?
I actually am a foreign actor (effectively like your own president). I'm British.
Jones is a rabble rouser, as is most of the "right" in the US. You'd do well to learn how to spot them, and like your president, he's only interested with stuffing his pockets with money.
Enjoy your fascism - comes with a free side of disappearing people. I'm sure you'll be Pinchoeted in no time at all based on your narrative once it's all locked in.
I couldn't disagree more. The vast majority of papers the founders of the US published to argue against tyrannical government were written anonymously.
> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
This is a cliche "think of the children" argument. Stripping away anonymity is a gargantuan problem, and enables authoritarian regimes to punish dissent. Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.
> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron. The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.
So we agree: authoritarian regimes are a gargantuan problem, not stripping away anonymity.
> Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.
Online predator almost killed my child - this is not a "very minor problem". At least not for me.
> This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron.
It is not bout things _I_ don't like but things that _we (society)_ don't like. In my country nazi symbols are forbidden in public space and I think it is a good thing. So yes - "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions".
> The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.
Why not? There are countries which governments are elected by citizens and are _trusted_ by citizens. Why would I want to be anonymous if I _trust_ people I elected?
At some point the disingenous concerned parents need to start dealing with their own parenting instead of pretending we need to live in 1984 just because your bad parenting requires it.
Your way has many more deaths of government dissenters. Stop using "death" as a scare tactic. Much like the "war on terror" supporters, it's a fraud.
Maybe oppressive government and lack of freedom of speech is a problem in your country, I don’t know that and I’m sorry for you. My suggestion would be though, that you try to fix your government instead of anonymously requiring online anonymity because you’re afraid of your own government.
I guess here in Poland trying to protect people from theft and violence is more pressing issue than freedom of speech.
> I guess here in Poland trying to protect people from theft and violence is more pressing issue than freedom of speech
I guess you're the kind that learned from the tactics of your oppressors from both sides and want to implement those in the guise of safety.
You don't need to remove civil rights to prevent theft and violence the same way you don't need to nuke a city to combat rape.
Tackle the real problem instead of removing the most fundamental of rights so you can suppress speech and dissent you dislike, which is all this is.
Very easily it becomes, you can't say this about party B or party A, you can't have this political position.
Give me a break.
Again, all these things posted by people who don't share their full name and address. Do it, the government will share yours anyway, voluntarily or not.
But the real problem is oppressive government. My government is not oppressive - my government is here to help me and help the society to maintain civil rights.
The view that it is the government that is against civil rights is anarchistic and... wrong. In reality it is the opposite: the only way to maintain civil rights is to have the rule of law and the government that protects them.
What's more: anonymity itself has to be guarded by... the government (and that's what you require). So your logic is twisted: you trust your government to protect anonymity while at the same time you don't trust it to protect freedom of speech.
In any case, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about, dude. Isn't that the line?
Clearly you can't live up by the standards you want to impose on others.
I have nothing to worry about from my government - that's the important difference.
Inside actors are also spreading misinfo, rage bait, propaganda and general degeneracy of culture. They're blaming outsiders while doing the same or even worse.
Antivax is a strategy, not a serious point of view.
but the Trump administration and the current USG.
it's a move against the American Culture AND government
e: Well, unlikely to be connected to the current admin; it does target misinfo which was a big media focus surrounding the elections in 2016/2020
Please post your evidence of this regarding Nepal. Also, are you suggesting that Nepal has an authoritarian government? Picking up a book may be helpful, as they literally abolished their authoritarian government in 1990 and their monarchy in 2008.