By Jacob Mchangama
Last month, Vice President J.D. Vance lectured European leaders about their troubling retreat from free speech, calling their actions “shocking to American ears” and a threat to democracy itself. Yet new global survey data reveal a troubling incongruity in Vance’s own backyard: Despite boasting the world’s strongest constitutional protections, Americans’ support for free speech is eroding dramatically, particularly among younger generations.
At a time when the Trump administration weaponizes power against its critics and the left increasingly equates speech with harm, America is losing its civil libertarian commitment precisely when this foundational right faces unprecedented pressures from both cultural intolerance and governmental overreach. If Americans fail to recognize and reverse this trend, the country’s status as a beacon of free expression risks fading.
The 2025 Future of Free Speech Index, based on surveys conducted in 33 countries, places the United States ninth globally in free speech support—a respectable but hardly exceptional position. More concerning is the trajectory: The U.S. has experienced the third-largest decline in support for free speech since our previous survey in 2021, behind only Japan and Israel.
This phenomenon is part of a broader “free speech recession” happening globally, with twice as many countries showing substantial decreases in support for free expression as showing increases.
But America’s retreat is particularly notable given its unique constitutional protection and self-conception as free speech’s foremost defender.
In fact, the strongest popular support for free speech is found in the Old World, with Norway and Denmark first and second and Sweden in the top five, along with two democratic backsliders: Hungary and Venezuela. These latter cases present a fascinating paradox—populations that strongly value free expression despite living under governments increasingly hostile to this right. This disconnect between “demand” for free speech and its actual “supply” suggests that citizens in these countries recognize what they’re losing as their governments tighten restrictions.
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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).