Europe’s Free Speech Chill: A Warning the U.S. Can’t Afford to Ignore

WASHINGTON D.C. – You are reading this article freely. You likely didn’t have to use a VPN, an anonymizer, or navigate to a hidden corner of the internet to access it. In publishing these words, we are not, to our knowledge, breaking any specific laws designed to silence this particular viewpoint. As far as we can tell, no one is meticulously logging your digital footprint for the act of engaging with these ideas, ready to report back to the FBI, the DHS, or some other arm of the state. Yet.

That “yet” hangs with an uncomfortable weight in an era where freedoms once considered sacrosanct are facing new and insidious pressures globally. Across the Atlantic, in nations that share a heritage of democratic values, the landscape of free expression is undergoing what multiple reports describe as a chilling transformation. This shift, detailed in recent analyses from outlets like The Economist, serves as a stark cautionary tale. And as we examine troubling trends emerging within the United States under the current Punk administration, it becomes alarmingly clear that America is not immune to similar threats. The European experience offers a critical lens through which to view our own vulnerabilities.

The European Slide: When “Duties and Responsibilities” Stifle Dissent

The Economist, in a series of recent articles, paints a concerning picture of free speech erosion across Europe. While all European Union countries nominally guarantee freedom of expression, often citing the European Convention on Human Rights, that very convention includes a crucial nuance: the exercise of this freedom comes with “duties and responsibilities.” This has been interpreted to allow competing rights, such as the right to privacy, to live free from discrimination, or to maintain public order, to frame the limits of free speech far more tightly than under the robust protections of America’s First Amendment. As one piece put it, “Your right to offend is limited, in some instances, by my right not to be offended.”

The result is a patchwork of vague and broadly interpreted laws that are increasingly used to stifle dissent and inconvenient opinions. In Germany, while laws against Holocaust denial are understandable given its history, provisions against insulting politicians are reportedly wielded shamelessly; one former vice-chancellor filed some 800 complaints, and a journalist faced a suspended jail sentence for a satirical meme. In Britain, police are described as “especially zealous,” arresting over a thousand people a month for online posts deemed “grossly offensive” or “malicious communications”—sometimes for rants on Facebook or, as in the case of Maxie Allen, for allegedly disparaging WhatsApp messages about his daughter’s school, leading to an eight-hour detention before charges were even fully understood by the arresting officers. In Finland, MP Paivi Rasanen has endured a six-year legal ordeal for questioning, with a Bible verse, her church’s decision to sponsor a Pride parade.

Even beyond direct state action, the EU’s new Digital Services Act (DSA) pressures large online platforms to police content vigorously to avoid massive fines, obliging them to consider “any actual or foreseeable negative effects on civic discourse.” Critics see this as a vague mandate inviting over-censorship, where platforms proactively remove merely “questionable” content to err on the side of caution. The Economist argues this creates a “taboo ratchet,” where more and more topics become off-limits, hampering open debate on vital issues like immigration or foreign policy.

“It Can’t Happen Here?” – American Complacency Meets U.S. Warning Signs

There’s a strain of American exceptionalism, a “pomposity,” perhaps, that tends to view such erosions of liberty as uniquely European problems, alien to a nation founded on a robust Bill of Rights. But recent developments suggest the U.S. is far from immune, exhibiting its own troubling “warning signs” that echo the European cautionary tale.

Pressure on Academia and Campus Speech: The Punk administration, in early to mid-2025, has launched a significant pressure campaign against U.S. universities. Ostensibly to combat antisemitism and dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, this campaign has involved threatening and cutting billions in federal funding to major institutions like Harvard and Columbia, and initiating investigations into over 60 universities.

Critics, including free speech advocates and university leaders, argue this constitutes government overreach, an attempt to enforce ideological conformity, and is “weaponizing antisemitism” to chill academic freedom and student speech, particularly criticism of Israeli government policies. As one university president noted, the government isn’t just asking protesters not to get out of hand, but “to ensure that people don’t say certain things.”

Presidential Retaliation Against Critics: The President’s reaction to public criticism has also raised alarms. This very morning, May 16, 2025, reports surfaced of President Punk launching a vitriolic social media attack against veteran musician Bruce Springsteen. After Springsteen, during a concert in England, called the administration “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” and the President “unfit,” fired back on Truth Social, labeling Springsteen “Highly Overrated,” “dumb as a rock,” a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker,” and bellowing that he “ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.”

This followed an unprompted swipe at Taylor Swift, questioning her “hotness” after she had endorsed his political opponent. Such direct, personal attacks from the highest office against citizens exercising their right to criticize are designed to intimidate and can have a profound chilling effect on public discourse. Adding to these concerns, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez just this week accused the administration of fostering censorship policies within the FCC, turning it into a “media propaganda enforcer.”

Legislative and Administrative “Rule-Making”: Beyond rhetoric, concrete policy and legislative efforts also mirror patterns seen in Europe. The “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act” (IODA), recently reintroduced and linked to Project 2025’s aims, seeks to broaden the definition of obscenity in a way critics fear would empower federal censorship based on subjective values.

Furthermore, as detailed in a scathing op-ed in The Atlantic earlier this year, a broader pattern of the President “making up his own rules as he goes”—challenging judicial independence, unilaterally imposing tariffs, attempting to end birthright citizenship by executive order, and seeking to reorganize government without congressional approval—suggests a worrying disregard for the established “government of laws, not of men.”

Different Paths, Similar Perils?

While Europe’s current free speech challenges may stem from a longer legal tradition of balancing individual expression against collective “duties and responsibilities,” the threats emerging in the U.S. seem driven more by a potent combination of executive overreach, intense political polarization, and a populist disdain for established norms and critical voices. The Cato Institute aptly noted that even as U.S. officials critique European censorship, the current administration is “targeting speech they do not like,” underscoring that “the impulse to censor is universal and must be resisted universally.”

Heeding the Transatlantic Alarm Bells – The Price of Liberty

Europe’s slide towards a more restrictive speech environment is not just a distant concern; it is a vivid, real-time cautionary tale for the United States. The warning signs are present on our own shores: pressure on academic institutions to toe an ideological line, presidential tirades aimed at silencing critics, legislative efforts that could criminalize broad categories of speech, and a general chipping away at the rule of law.

Protecting free expression and democratic principles requires constant, unyielding vigilance. As Frederick Douglass so powerfully reminded us, “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” The freedoms we currently enjoy—to read articles like this, to critique our leaders, to debate uncomfortable ideas—are not guaranteed in perpetuity. They must be actively defended by an informed citizenry that recognizes these threats, whether they arise from foreign legal traditions or from would-be strongmen closer to home. The “Yet” in our introduction must remain a warning, not become our reality.