The fact that Europeans are standing up for free speech while the United States is not speaks volumes to how things have changed in the US over the last few decades.
Have our politics really gone so far down the "Win at all costs! Censor all other opinions!" rabbit hole that speech here is now less free than Europe?
Before you parrot the "but.. but... inciting violence" talking point in reply, try to find an actual source of President Trump calling for violence on Twitter. Don't believe everything you read.
It isn't pertinent to the conversation re: europe. Also, it's false, you can be imprisoned for inciting violence (or taking other unlawful action) in the United States. Finally, there isn't a categorical distinction between having speech restricted by a suit brought in civil court vs in criminal court: in both cases my speech is curtailed by law.
I drew the obvious contrast with most of the rest of the world in the parent comment, I have nothing more to say there.
Incitement to racial hatred, done publicly, can be held illegal if it crosses certain thresholds. I don’t think this means Europeans don’t have free speech.
This is just wrong. In many EU countries the free speech protections are quite extensive (and some of us live in countries that have protected speech longer than the U.S have been around).
Source? I am a EU citizen, My freedom of speech is only inhibited when I incite to violence or discriminate. That is because it is illegal to do, seems fair.
It's a path that pre-dates the EU. We're a crowded continent with a huge amount of diversity and a long and bitter history of war. We have learned through bitter experience that, while free speech is a precious right, it is also an extremely dangerous one in the wrong circumstances. Germans in particular are acutely aware of the disastrous consequences of allowing incitement to go unchallenged.
Free speech is not unconditional in the US; there are many things that an American could say that would see them brought before the courts. European nations have simply drawn the line in a different place, for entirely understandable historical reasons.
Everyone who claims the EU has free speech does not get it. Free speech does not exist in Europe! And for those fools who claim its the same as in the US and argue with hate Speech let me quote Wikipedia for you:
"The United States does not have hate speech laws, since American courts have repeatedly ruled that laws criminalizing hate speech violate the guarantee to freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."
And this is why the US has the best laws for freedom of expression because hate speech is just a pathetic excuse to ban speech the people in power do not like. Its way to bread and gets abused all the time. That is why the EU has not free speech. You can not claim there is free speech when you at the same time ban everything that is deemed "hate speech" punishable by law!
The limits on free speech in European countries are also much older in parts. The history in Europe on that topic is just very different from the US, I'd say.
It's funny, hate speech laws are unconstitutional and could not be passed in the US but such laws are commonplace in Europe. Yet people like to mock the US for saying it's the land of the free.
You're moving the goalposts. Your statement suggested you want a US-style "1st amendment" in Europe. I don't. That has nothing to do with "free speech" as a concept.
Under the US interpretation of free speech political donations are protected as "speech" and politicians can go on TV and say they want someone to be murdered and not face any consequences.
I'm German so you can imagine why I fundamentally disagree with that notion, even if our laws are sometimes a bit too strict (though that often has more to do with post-WW2 denazification than free speech in particular -- e.g. not being allowed to put nazi symbology in video games, not even as enemies).
UK libel laws and their advertising code are another example of European laws being a bit too strict. But even that is something I'd prefer over the "law of the strongest" in the US.
EDIT: Free speech is obviously a great idea and an important right, but the problem with freedoms and rights is that they can't be absolutes when you live in a society with other people you want to share those rights and freedoms ("your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins"). Additionally some of those freedoms and rights are mutually exclusive so you need to define an order of precedence. Even free speech absolutists generally draw the line somewhere (e.g. generally violence isn't considered speech even if it is a form of expression and few people would defend the right to shout "fire" in a crowded building and not facing the consequences of the resulting mayhem).
In other words "being willing to defend free speech" is a meaningless platitude unless you first define what you consider the acceptable limits of that freedom.
The same is not true in countries without free speech protections.
I'm not convinced. I've seen plenty of (presumably) US citizens complain here that Europe doesn't have free speech, because we have laws to curb hate speech.
Still, we are very much free to discuss and organize against our government.
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