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Notes -
1 I responded to that comment below.
2 If your free speech comes with the caveat that any sufficiently powerful person or group can effectively own the public square in part or whole and dictate what can and can't be said then I can only consider my original point, that Americans are far too quick to congratulate themselves on the topic of freedoms and rights, proven and demonstrated.
3 I'm not terribly interested in getting in the weeds on this nor do I see the relevance, but:
I don't see how Trump 2.0 can be considered to have given his voters what they wanted when there is an active middle east war and more foreign workers in the country now than before his second term began. But the MAGA base will cheer on literally anything as long as Trump does it so there's that.
If your free speech rights hinge on you becoming a billionaire to functionally buy the public square then, again, I feel I can't overstate my original point.
4 Isn't that a great refutation of your own point? He didn't compare himself to Europe and make that the barometer. He had ideological and philosophical values! He looked beyond just what's in the world and dared to dream of what was possible. Or something...
But how American are those values? The vast majority of the American elite is in favor of speech restrictions and controls. Illustrated by every other American platform having very clear speech and content restrictions that go beyond any law of the land. That's why Musk had to buy Twitter. Before that people had been getting banned for misgendering people or making political jokes that offended the ownership elite or the special interest groups that constantly drive for more censorship like the ADL. Musk's X is in a very clear minority among the elite and his platform still engages in censorship and backroom algorithmic manipulation.
How about we have our own ideologies and values and judge what's happening in the world of free speech by those? Rather than basing our barometer on what some billionaire came up with or what they are doing in Germany or wherever else.
I came from a country where people are afraid of writing too much in private chat and would rather call you up to talk. The plurality of opinions here in America is frikin amazing in comparison. People can go to whatever public square they like here. Twitter, bluesky, mastodon, reddit, random forums, random forums that had to migrate and move to their own sites. Good luck making another social media site in my country without getting a visit from the police. We obviously have very different viewpoints on this. "I didn't see the light until I was already a man". You are very vigilant of any erosion of rights, or maybe disappointed at the gap between theory and reality. Just because the American people (the elites or the masses) fail to live up to American values does not twist American values nor detract from the striving to have and keep those values. What I see is that an American can go into the streets holding a sign, or tweet it out, or make a website, or rambling posts on Facebook, on most things and won't get beaten or put away in unmarked vans, and that is the kind of freedoms I would congratulate America for.
Unfortunately, this happened to Rümeysa Öztürk. That she was a (legal) immigrant Muslim who wrote an op-ed accusing Israel of genociding Palestinians - I think is just a poor excuse.
Thankfully, she's free now.
I do believe, today, the United States has overall more free speech than any other nation. I think the EU nations have significantly more free speech than Russia, China, Iran, etc. Importantly, both America and Europe allow mocking public figures (my example is one of only a couple exceptions) and anonymous web usage (I'm sure the FBI etc. track you, but seem to only act on classified information and CSAM).
Still, I think every nation should have more.
unfortunately for her but Rümeysa Öztürk wasn't an American.
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