Interview by Selcuk Gultasli
In an in-depth interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Jacob Mchangama warns that liberal institutions are becoming “increasingly illiberal” in their efforts to combat populism and disinformation. Examining electoral censorship in Brazil, Germany’s militant democracy, and the EU’s Digital Services Act, he argues that restrictive speech policies risk undermining democratic legitimacy while strengthening authoritarian forces. Emphasizing the democratic significance of independent digital media, particularly in Hungary, he cautions that “imposing government control is ultimately a cure worse than the disease.” Professor Mchangama also examines the dangers of AI-driven censorship, selective free-speech advocacy, and declining institutional trust, advocating decentralization, transparency, and user empowerment as alternatives to increasingly technocratic approaches to regulating the democratic public sphere.
At a time when democratic institutions confront populism, disinformation, political censorship, and the growing influence of artificial intelligence and technology giants, freedom of expression has become both a cornerstone of democratic resilience and a deeply contested principle. Brazil’s presidential election and the US midterms offer particularly revealing examples of these tensions. Across liberal democracies, efforts to counter extremist mobilization and digital disinformation raise an increasingly urgent question: Can democracy be protected through restrictions on the very freedoms that sustain it?
Professor Mchangama develops this argument through Brazil’s judicial interventions in electoral expression, Germany’s increasingly restrictive speech legislation, and the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Questioning the effectiveness of Europe’s militant democracy model, he invokes the Weimar Republic’s historical experience, when emergency powers intended to safeguard democratic institutions were subsequently exploited by the Nazis. His conclusion is stark: “the very instruments intended to protect democracy were used to abolish it.”
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Jacob Mchangama is the Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech. He is also a research professor at Vanderbilt University and a Senior Fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).