Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from the new book, The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom by Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff (Johns Hopkins University Press).
On October 7, 2023, Hamas operatives carried out the deadliest single attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Around 1,200 people were killed, including hundreds of civilians—children, the elderly, and women. Many of the terrorists proudly recorded the horrific details on smartphones and shared them on messaging apps, and went public from there. The Hamas attack triggered a bloody Israeli invasion of Gaza that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and reduced much of Gaza to rubble. It also had immediate consequences for already tense debates about the limits of free speech around the globe, including open democracies far removed from the carnage in the Middle East.
Students and academics at elite universities in the United States protested Israel’s invasion of Gaza. In several instances protesters justified—and some celebrated—the mass slaughter of Israeli civilians. In Europe and Australia, several pro-Palestinian demonstrations were marred by horrific antisemitic chants. In Berlin, a synagogue was attacked with firebombs while Stars of David were scrawled on apartments housing Jews, reminiscent of Nazi intimidation in the 1930s. In Denmark, the intelligence services advised Jews to cancel planned pro-Israeli demonstrations, out of fear of terrorist attacks. Though Jews were much more frequently targeted, Muslims also became victims. On Thanksgiving weekend 2023, three Palestinian American students were gunned down in Burlington, Vermont, in a suspected hate crime.
The public justifications for the Hamas attack led to demands for tougher responses to antisemitism, including on U.S. college campuses. The presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania testified at a House Education and the Workforce Committee (HEWC) hearing on antisemitism on December 5, 2023. Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York aggressively pressed the visibly uncomfortable university presidents on whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated their universities’ policies on bullying and harassment. The presidents all condemned Hamas and antisemitism but emphasized their commitment to free speech and explained that context and conduct were key in policy violations.
This principled stand marked a stark contrast with how these universities had previously addressed and sanctioned much less virulent speech on race, gender, and diversity. Intense criticism and accusations of elite universities’ hypocrisy on free speech led to the resignation of the University of Pennsylvania’s president and a HEWC resolution condemning the testimonies of the university presidents. They also prompted the House of Representatives to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which included some criticism of Israel in its broad and vague definition of antisemitism. The bill was deemed unconstitutional by free speech groups such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which stated that the bill would “leave students and faculty unsure about expressing statements and opinions that could get them into trouble, causing many to stay silent rather than risk investigation and discipline.”
The surge in antisemitism after the Hamas attack also alarmed European governments. In response, authorities in France and Germany banned pro-Palestinian protests, leading to the arrest of hundreds of demonstrators and numerous charges for glorification of terrorism or hate speech. Meanwhile, The Guardian terminated cartoonist Steve Bell over a cartoon critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which the newspaper deemed antisemitic. Several cultural events in Europe and the United States featuring Palestinian authors, filmmakers, and musicians were canceled, despite having no connection to or support for terrorism.
The European Union seized on the Hamas terrorist attack as an opportunity to exercise its newly acquired regulatory authority under the Digital Services Act—expansive legislation requiring technology companies to assess and remove illegal content and address systemic risks from “harmful” content, including alleged disinformation. Thierry Breton, the then European Commission’s internal market commissioner, issued a series of stern public warnings to major tech company executives, claiming inadequate content moderation, which drew criticism from civil rights groups.
These shocks to free expression came at a time when this freedom was already under severe global stress. According to Freedom House, 2024 marked the 19th consecutive year where civil and political rights declined globally. In recent years, no human right has been more heavily restricted than freedom of expression—a poignant reminder that free speech is the “the dread of tyrants” and, therefore, “the right which they first of all strike down,” to use the words of Frederick Douglass. As the data show, this is as true in the 21st century as it was in 411 B.C., when Athenian oligarchs overthrew history’s first democracy in a bloody coup.
Europe’s turn to censorship did not go unnoticed. Less than a month into his term as vice president of the United States, at a speech in Munich, J.D. Vance attacked European censorship: “When I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be, quote, ‘hateful content.’” Vance also strongly criticized what he viewed as censorship committed by the Biden administration in the United States.
His speech gave great hope that the new U.S. administration would reverse the free speech recession both in and outside the United States. It started promisingly. On his very first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order entitled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” signaling an end to the pressure on platforms that had taken place during the Biden administration, which, in 2022, had briefly created a “Disinformation Governance Board” that was shuttered after Biden officials were unable to clearly explain its operations and how it complied with the First Amendment.
Yet the early months of the Trump administration saw new and concerted threats to free speech. Trump used executive orders to punish law firms that were associated with Trump adversaries. His immigration officials cracked down on foreign college students who had expressed pro-Palestinian views. His Federal Communications Commission chairman launched an investigation into the alleged “news distortion” of a broadcaster’s editing of an interview of Trump’s 2024 election opponent. He sued a pollster for incorrectly predicting that his 2024 opponent was leading the presidential race in Iowa.
While the general public expresses support for free speech, recent research suggests that many individuals are increasingly tolerant of restrictions. A March 2025 survey of individuals in 33 countries by The Future of Free Speech found that support for free speech ranges from 54 to 88 percent, with most nations showing “high level of support for free speech in the abstract, but support is lower and more divided when it comes to statements that are offensive to minorities or one’s own religion, supportive of homosexual relationships, or insulting to the national flag.” The report also found that in the majority of the countries studied, support for free speech declined from 2021 to 2024 among the 33 countries, with the United States having the third largest decline in support for free speech. These developments show that democracies are not immune to the censorial impulses that have weakened the ecosystem of free expression around the globe.
And that weakening is happening alongside a historic expansion of the boundaries of technology. On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, which mesmerized the world by its capability to create highly convincing and coherent arguments from user prompts. This groundbreaking release heralded a wave of advanced generative AI models that exhibited rapid enhancements in their capabilities, showcasing proficiency not only in composing text, but also in creating images, videos, and audio. Based on a few prompts, the AI system can deliver persuasive arguments, “reason,” and perform what to humans appears as critical thinking about complex issues.
The introduction of generative AI was the first time in human history that new communications technology did not depend—or at least depended very little—on human input to create new ideas, arguments, images, audio, and video. A scribe needed to combine his brain and hand to put legible writing on parchment, the printing press relied on the proper ordering of movable type, and radio and television conveyed and carried whatever sounds and images humans broadcast. Even social media platforms have traditionally depended on user-generated content, though algorithmic distribution determines its reach, and search engines, until their integration with AI, simply retrieved and indexed existing information. But the initial awe and excitement triggered by generative AI was quickly tempered as the digital age’s third wave of “elite panic” set in. Fears about AI’s potential to exterminate humanity were mixed with more familiar warnings about AI destroying democratic institutions by supercharging the spread of hate and hoaxes.
Despite the global free speech recession, there seems to be little sense of urgency about reversing this trend in most open democracies. Rights organizations, politicians, intellectuals, and traditional media regularly decry the imprisonment of journalists in Russia, the torture of protesters in Iran, and the more subtle monopolization of the public sphere by illiberal democrats in Hungary. But in Germany, France, Denmark, Canada, and the United Kingdom, neither public opinion nor civil society seem to worry about the long-term viability of liberal democracies if the current trajectory of speech restrictions continues. Many citizens of open democracies appear to view free-speech restrictions at home as a necessary safeguard for democracy and an antidote to the draconian censorship and propaganda that characterizes authoritarian states.
The state of free speech in America is somewhat different. In the words of Columbia University’s former president, Lee Bollinger, the First Amendment is “the most speech protective of any nation on Earth, now or throughout history.” The robustness of the First Amendment has acted as a firewall against the kinds of legal restrictions that are hollowing out free-speech protections in other open democracies. But America—and the world—currently are at an inflection point for free speech values. The underlying assumptions of American “free-speech exceptionalism” have lost much of their unifying appeal. While the abstract principle of “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” debate remains widely supported, unity fractures along deepening identitarian lines when each side’s sacred taboos are violated. This shift toward free speech pessimism is particularly notable among legal scholars, journalists, and pundits who once broadly embraced civil-libertarian First Amendment principles. The rise of large, centralized social media platforms—now integral to the exercise of free speech—has exacerbated this pessimism.
This book serves as a wake-up call against the growing pessimism around free speech. Too often such pessimism leans heavily on isolated recent incidents, while overlooking the broader historical gains of free speech and the very real and harmful consequences of censorship.
While we acknowledge that free speech can cause tangible harms, we critically examine the trend of magical thinking where being tough on speech is seen as a catch-all solution for the challenges facing modern and emerging democracies. Our argument is grounded in the belief that the essence of free speech is upheld not just by legal safeguards, but also by a deep-rooted civic commitment to open dialogue and tolerance of ideas we loathe. This is what sets democratic societies apart from authoritarian regimes. Democracies face a perilous path, however, if they continue to widen the net of speech restrictions under the banners of combating hate speech, disinformation, or terrorism. The experiences of countries like Hungary, Hong Kong, and India serve as stark reminders. Once the boundaries of free speech become too ambiguous, the very foundations of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law are at risk. These are not easily restored through ordinary democratic processes.
We also aim to critically evaluate the notion that censorship serves as an effective remedy against hate speech, disinformation, and societal polarization. This premise, upon closer scrutiny, rests on shaky empirical foundations. Moreover, the tangible and immediate detriments of such censorship tactics are manifold, particularly under authoritarian and illiberal regimes where official censorship and propaganda are pervasive. In these contexts, the suppression of free speech not only stifles dissent, but also entrenches the power structures that perpetuate misinformation and social divisions. There is no reason to think that mature democracies are immune to these effects. Human beings are complex creatures whose sense of well-being, fairness, and community requires institutions of legitimate authority to do something about problems and concerns (real or imagined), even if the outcomes of such interventions involve inevitable trade-offs and may end up being less than optimal.
But there are nonrestrictive strategies that governments, civil society organizations, and individuals can adopt to address the notable harms associated with free and equal speech in the digital era. We are not so naive as to believe that these strategies will be a magic bullet; public disagreement is an inevitable consequence of free speech. So is the disruptive nature of technological developments that constitute the ever-evolving “machinery” of free expression in the 21st century. In fact, recognizing these are inherent features of free speech—and that trying to stamp them out would mean dismantling this freedom itself—is vital for constructive dialogue and realistic policies for the future of free expression. We also believe, however, that these costs and risks are worth the enormous benefits where free speech is indispensable, including democracy, human rights, tolerance, equality, scientific progress, and the approximation of truth.
To quote George Orwell, “If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.” It is our hope that our book will make public opinion less sluggish and help prevent the persecution of inconvenient minorities.
