America prides itself on being the world’s loudest defender of free speech. From the First Amendment to college protest debates, we wear “freedom” like a badge that’s supposed to separate us apart from the rest of the world. But the reality is that in the United States, our freedom of expression has become less about protection and more about performance. We claim to champion speech, but only when it fits comfortably within narratives we want to hear.
In many parts of the world, words can cost lives. In the U.S., they can cost reputations, careers or a sense of fitting in. The difference power, not just moral clarity. Where some fight for the right to speak without being imprisoned, Americans fight for the right to speak without being unfollowed. Both are battles of expression, but they exist on opposite ends of privilege.
In an age where everyone has a platform, silence has become its own form of protest. Around the world, those who choose to stay quiet often do so out of exhaustion, not indifference—a refusal to feed the noise machine that confuses volume for virtue. In places like Gaza, silence can mean survival; in the West, it can mean resistance to the constant pressure to declare, perform or pick a side. Yet we’ve grown so suspicious of restraint that neutrality is treated like betrayal. When expression is required, silence becomes the last act of self-control. It’s the moral pause that keeps chaos from swallowing conversation whole.
And if violence is born from unrestrained expression, then the real culprit is the system that rewards it. Modern free speech doesn’t exist in some sort of vacuum; it runs on profit and emotion. Outrage is the new currency, and everyone’s buying in. Social media algorithms reward anger because anger keeps people online, and politicians mimic that rhythm, turning civic debate into performance art. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center study, nearly 65 percent of Americans say political conversations now feel more like fights than discussions and that they’re exhausted around conversations about politics. The problem goes much deeper than that, it’s also tied to emotional illiteracy. We’ve learned to confuse impulsive expression with authenticity, mistaking reaction for reason. When we speak to hurt people instead of understand, democracy stops being dialogue and becomes therapy with an audience.
Political violence doesn’t always look like riots or assassinations. It often begins in quieter, more insidious ways. Microaggressions, slurs, and online harassment are forms of everyday political hostility that chip away at social trust and normalize intolerance. These smaller acts create a culture where dehumanization becomes casual, making larger eruptions of violence feel inevitable. When discrimination hides behind “opinions” and verbal attacks are brushed off as “free speech,” the line between expression and aggression fades. Political violence, in all its forms, is not born overnight—it grows in the spaces where empathy is absent and silence becomes complicity.
Freedom of speech isn’t universal. European nations like France, Germany and the U.K., not held to the First Amendment of America, often draw limits on hate speech and misinformation. Their model isn’t total freedom, but rather “responsible freedom.” Critics call that censorship. Yet these same societies often encourage open artistic, intellectual and political discourse that transcends partisan boundaries, which America increasingly struggles with. In countries like Denmark or the Netherlands, self-expression is celebrated as part of a shared social ethic, not as a weapon in a cultural war.
We have similar laws in America, where free speech is protected as long as it is not defamatory, obscene or specifically threatening. However, the boundaries of this protection often gets blurred by the claim that the government is infringing on the rights of its citizens. We as Americans have grown so comfortable with the belief that we can say anything without consequence. As a result of this, blatant hate speech is often spread and justified under the pretense of “free speech” and this rhetoric is the root of political violence. People run to social media to express their raw, hostile thoughts without hesitation; some even build entire platforms on it.
We’ve mistaken loudness for power, and it’s making us violent. In America, free speech has become less about exchanging ideas and more about performing outrage. Political discourse now thrives on provocation, where volume replaces conviction and aggression is framed as authenticity. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, incidents of politically motivated violence in the U.S. have more than doubled since 2016, often fueled by online rhetoric.
Meanwhile, in countries such as France or South Africa, protest culture still carries moral weight. The danger in America isn’t censorship; it’s chaos disguised as liberty. The world reminds us that free speech isn’t a trophy to hold up—it’s a responsibility to uphold. True expression requires not just the absence of censorship, but the presence of empathy, courage and understanding. If freedom means anything, it’s the ability to not just speak truth without fear, but also have the humility to hear it. That’s not an American ideal, but it’s a human one.
