Speech abroad starts at home: How America can promote free expression globally

Manas Pandit is a rising junior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a FIRE summer intern.

“Why do you care about the Civil War?” 

A friend recently asked me that question after seeing me reading a book about the Battle of Antietam. The question may seem odd, but its underlying motive is compelling. My friend wanted to understand why I, someone who is not an American, am interested in the United States and its history. Until I landed on American soil a week prior to starting classes at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I had not ever visited the U.S. before. So why should I care?

I was born and raised in New Delhi, India. Since I can remember, I’ve had a rebellious streak and an inclination to stir the pot. Both culturally and legally, political discourse in India is a heavily circumscribed activity. Religious sensibilities must receive every possible respect, and political criticism must proceed respectfully. This never quite worked for me, and I chafed at the boundaries of permissible comment. 

Such chafing demanded either outlet or explosion: Thankfully, an outlet presented itself. In 2020, trapped indoors by the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few friends and I started an online political publication, Discordium Magazine. My idea for Discordium was clear: a “free speech absolutist” publication that would not shrink from publishing radical, dissident ideas, so long as they were well-argued. 

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In August of that year, a major controversy enveloped the nation, including my upstart online magazine. An age-old religious debate supposedly came to resolution after the Supreme Court adjudged a plot of land in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh (a state in India), which both Hindus and Muslims claimed as a holy site, to properly belong to Hindus. 

I had my reservations about the decision, the Court’s decision-making process, and the entire controversy in the first place. 

“Do you truly need another Mosque or Mandir (a Hindu place of worship),” I asked. “Or is this simply an exercise in establishing dominance over the other?” 

With these questions in mind, I did what any magazine editor would do: I wrote a strongly worded editorial on the matter, ridiculing both religious establishments and calling for giving the land to a secular cause such as a school or a hospital. 

This led to a massive row between me and the members of the magazine team. Their position was eminently reasonable: My personal crusade was not theirs, but the publication of such an essay in our magazine would necessarily make it theirs. The potential consequences — employers tracing their digital record and finding the article, an army of mindless establishment keyboard warriors harassing and doxxing them — would deter even the most ardent would-be dissenters, never mind those without a dog in the fight. 

I wound up publishing a more softly worded and conciliatory piece, substantively the same, but much diminished in tone. I still spoke, but my words were muted. 

In many developing nations cultural norms differ, and based on those norms, governments may try to censor content that is perfectly acceptable in the U.S.

This act of self-censorship stung, but it ultimately clarified both my goals and my situation. I wanted to fight for free expression, and there was no better place to do that than in the U.S. Nowhere does the concept of free expression find better application than in the U.S., and the gradual evolution of American discourse from censorial to one synonymous with freedom offers a model to study and emulate. 

But even in the U.S., I cannot help but recognize the global situation. 

Can social media companies impact free speech abroad? 

The state of free expression globally is dire. The Chinese and Russian governments censor as though their lives depend on it (not an inaccurate assessment, I might add), and ostensible democracies like Turkey and India are not far behind. And as they grow less free, the rest of the world feels these effects, on and offline.

Social media plays a big role in the fight against such censorship, and allows for dissemination of contrary ideas, making it the perennial target of authoritarians. While the moderation of online speech, jawboning, and misinformation remain hot-button issues within the U.S., an even bigger question looms: How should social media platforms operate overseas? Should they, in Elon Musk’s view, simply follow the law of the land, even when doing so means they operate as censorship arms of autocrats?

The next time local governments attempt to quash disfavored viewpoints and threaten retaliation, the platforms should call their bluff. 

That’s the prevailing norm now — but it doesn’t have to be. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have more standing than they seem to realize. One of Facebook’s fastest growing user bases is in India. In Turkey, more than a fifth of the population use the platform. Vietnam has a Facebook user base of more than 80%, and 93% of internet users visit the platform at least once a month. 

Facebook is entrenched in the developing world, and an outright ban on the platform is likely not feasible. First, the platform is an integral part of life and commerce for so many people that its removal would lead to popular protest. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the platform is vital to the authoritarians’ own project: There exists no better way to disseminate propaganda. 

Even in the U.S., propaganda can spread online like wildfire when expressed organically by individuals. If disseminated abroad through autocratic government sources, in a less competitive information economy, its reach only increases. The authoritarians simply cannot afford to lose such a tool. 

This, combined with the ever present danger of popular protest, is where the platforms’ leverage lies. Facebook, Twitter, and others must use it to their advantage. They have both the practical ability and a moral imperative to stand up to authoritarians. 

The next time local governments attempt to quash disfavored viewpoints and threaten retaliation, the platforms should call their bluff. 

Of course, between inaction and outright banning, governments have many tools to bend platforms to their will, including scrutinizing tax filings, harassing employees, or frivolously litigating against the platform on unrelated and otherwise ignored matters. But in all likelihood these are dead-ends, and the governments know this. Such pressures are temporary in nature, designed entirely to force immediate obedience to the government’s demands. 

Do free speech laws change free speech culture?

It’s important to note that a government’s demands may not entirely oppose the people’s desires. In many developing nations cultural norms differ, and based on those norms, governments may try to censor content that is perfectly acceptable in the U.S.

In fact, it is non-Americans from whom I most often hear the argument that the American conception of freedom of speech is chief among our so-called “liberal niceties.” This misconception suggests that ideas that have advanced liberal democracy in the U.S. are unworkable in developing nations because the discourse has supposedly not ‘matured’ enough for such a vast expansion of permitted free expression. 

But this flatly misses the point. For a long time, the First Amendment was not considered protective of nearly as much speech as it now protects. In 1798, John Adams oversaw the passage of the Alien & Sedition Acts, which purported to bar publication of “false, scandalous, and malicious writing about the government.” In the early 20th century, Eugene Debs and other socialist leaders were imprisoned for comments that would not raise an eyebrow today. 

The developing world can cultivate a culture of free expression, regardless of the supposed “maturity” of their discourse, but the only way to achieve that goal is for social media platforms to take a stand, and refuse to play censor for governments.

Once the law began to change, culture could still lag behind. Even as the Supreme Court affirmed the right of public school students Marie and Gathie Barnette to refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, , prejudice against Jehovah’s Witnesses was already rampant. 

And yet, over time, the culture caught up. The culture of free expression the U.S. enjoys was not gifted to us; it was fought for. The principles of free speech were implemented to fierce, uproarious, and sometimes violent protest but eventually gained acceptance and changed free speech culture for the better. 

I have felt the impact of a poor free speech culture and the sting of self-censorship, but I have also felt the expressive empowerment social media offers. The developing world can cultivate a culture of free expression, regardless of the supposed “maturity” of their discourse, but the only way to achieve that goal is for social media platforms to take a stand, and refuse to play censor for governments. In doing so they can weaken the tools needed to censor, and provide those needed for open discussion.