The baseline level of freedom of speech in the EU, in particular, is much, much worse than in the US. We’re talking about a group of countries with active, enforced blasphemy laws! Completely unthinkable for Americans.

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microtonal 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US is at position 57 in the world free speech index. Virtually all EU countries do better and a bunch are top 10:

https://rsf.org/en/index

American exceptionalism doesn’t seem to know boundaries.

	▲	nozzlegear an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You linked to a site about press freedom, which is a subset of free speech and not generally what Americans are talking about when they talk about freedom of speech.

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Bewelge 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Boiling down the different approaches to freedom of speech to "The baseline level is higher/lower", has always been a pretty simplistic (and if you would actually delve into the topic a little, flat out wrong) view .

Freedom of speech is not absolute. Neither in Europe nor in the US. Both effectively have rules restricting certain speech. For example, speech that may harm others, such as inciting violence or maybe the most famous example: "Shouting FIRE in a full venue".

European countries tend to spell out these restrictions more explicitly. It's completely reasonable to disagree with these restrictions. But the simple existence of them shouldn't lead you to the conclusion that one is "more freedom of speech" than the other.

And at last I want to add, that that is how it's been historically. Sadly, the recent developments in US show pretty well how freedom of speech cannot be measured by "How many specific laws are there about things I cannot say?".

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dudefeliciano 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> freedom of speech

Oh please. There's free speech without a free press (US ranks 57/190, behind Sierra Leone) people are just amplifying the same BS they heard from some ignorant influencer. I would argue even your idea of "active enforced blasphemy laws" shows that. That's worse than useless, that is detrimental to a society (case in point, the current president and his whole cabinet).

https://rsf.org/en/index

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raincole 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The more I learn about EU's system the more I realize American exceptionalism is just stating facts.

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this_user 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The EU is really more middle-of-the-road in most things, while the US tends to be more extreme: more really good ideas, but also more really bad ideas. But that is also the result of the EU being largely controlled by bureaucrats and compliance officers instead of real leaders.

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haspok 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is it not true that when entering the US you are required to show all your social media content on request, and if there is anything negative about the current administration, you can be denied entry (if you are lucky, and not detained for an indefinite amount of time)?

Truly exceptional indeed. You are basically on par with China.

	▲	prmoustache an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Do they really do that and what do they do when you say you don't have one? Do they believe you or not having one is as suspicious as having one with the content they don't like?
	▲	johncoltrane 27 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		FWIW, you don't have to do any of that to enter China.

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krzyk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah. Try to enter US as EU citizen and see how good it is. Immigration officers are in bad mood (to say lightly).

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2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]