‘Free speech is in a dark place’

Free speech is under assault from all political sides in the West. In the US, the Trump administration is arresting and revoking the visas of foreign students and campus activists, seemingly for their views on Gaza. In Europe, hate-speech laws are enforced with ever increasing vigour by woke technocrats. Even blasphemy laws are making a comeback. The scope of what can be thought and said is narrowing, all across the supposedly free world.

Jacob Mchangama – executive director of The Future of Free Speech and author of Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media – joined Brendan O’Neill on his podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show, to discuss the global free-speech recession and why even non-citizens should have the right to speak freely. You can listen to the whole conversation here.

Brendan O’Neill: How optimistic are you in terms of free speech at the moment?

Jacob Mchangama: This isn’t a great moment for free speech. In the US, the Trump administration is going after visa and green-card holders over political speech. The administration looks to be treating free speech as a culture-war issue, and not approaching it with any semblance of principle. This will have ramifications for free speech around the world.

Then you have the old world. It was interesting to see JD Vance criticising European leaders in Munich a few months ago. He was right to scold these countries for restricting free speech. A recent statistic that blew my mind was that around 30 people a day are being arrested in the UK for offensive online communications. It’s even worse in Germany, while France is also heading in an illiberal direction. My home country, Denmark, re-introduced blasphemy laws after a copy of the Koran was burnt.

All in all, I would say the outlook is pretty bleak. The countries that were supposed to be the guardians of free speech, its traditional heartlands, are now quite happy to restrict this right in the name of ‘protecting democracy’.

O’Neill: What have you made of the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil in the US, and similar cases?

Mchangama: There’s an even more egregious case involving a PhD student from Tufts University, Rümeysa Öztürk. Her only ‘offence’ was to write a pretty bland op-ed in a student newspaper calling for Tufts to ‘acknowledge the Palestinian genocide’, which is pretty common fare in most universities these days. Of course, you can agree or disagree with her position, but arresting someone in scenes reminiscent of Turkey – she was arrested by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on a street in broad daylight – is quite frightening.

The administration has said that it is using artificial intelligence to scour the social-media accounts of foreigners, particularly foreign students. I think more than 300 people have had their visas revoked. That might not all be because of what they have said, but we don’t know because there’s no transparency. It’s not a great look for a country that has long committed itself to free speech.

In a recent piece, I used the example of Christopher Hitchens, a famous UK export, who lived for many years in the US as a green-card holder. He certainly didn’t hold back from criticising US foreign policy or skewering various US presidents. No one suggested that he should pay the price of deportation for his views. It’s a very weird moment.

O’Neill: Where is the line between speech and action here?

Mchangama: If, for example, Mahmoud Khalil had been found to have been communicating with Hamas, taking instruction from Hamas, or received funding from Hamas, then it would be a very different case. That would be material support for terrorism.

The standard at which free speech can be punished in the US is incredibly high. Only incitement to imminent lawless action crosses the line. I think there have been cases where Jewish students have been subjected to threats, intimidation and harassment that would not be protected by the First Amendment. But, from what I can see, the US government has made no compelling case that Mahmoud Khalil’s activism reaches that benchmark. It seems to me that the government is actively punishing ideas it doesn’t like.

O’Neill: What’s your response to people who say foreigners, or visa holders, don’t have the same free-speech rights as full citizens?

Mchangama: The American tradition is built on the idea that freedom of expression is not a licence granted by the government, but a natural right and it’s the role of the government to uphold it. If it is a natural right, why would you distinguish between citizens and non-citizens?

It doesn’t make sense from a utilitarian point of view, either. The US benefits from the voices of foreigners. About 35 per cent of US Nobel laureates were born outside of the country. Nearly 50 per cent of US companies worth more than $1 billion were founded by people born outside of the country. So, would you move to America to pursue an academic career or to work 100 hours a week building up a successful company if, one day, the Department of Homeland Security can deport you because of a tweet?

Freedom of expression for non-citizens gives a huge advantage to the US, and one that has allowed its universities to flourish. We can have lots of gripes about those universities, but in many departments they’re still world class. That would not be the case if they operated on the Russian or Chinese model.

I would also suggest Americans go back and read the works of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, because this is not a new debate. In 1798, the Alien Enemies Act was adopted, which allowed the president to deport any non-citizen they felt was a threat to the country. Madison rightly said it was wrong to deport someone who moved to the US to enjoy liberties that they couldn’t enjoy anywhere else. Jefferson called it a ‘detestable’ law worthy of the eighth or ninth century.

O’Neill: You mentioned that Denmark has recently imposed blasphemy laws, and in the UK the Labour government is planning to adopt an official definition of Islamophobia. What do you make of these developments?

Mchangama: It means we’re in a dark place. This year is the 20th anniversary of the Danish cartoon controversy, where Jyllands-Posten posted cartoons satirising Islam. What happened at Charlie Hebdo in 2015 was downstream of that, because it republished some cartoons used in Denmark in 2005.

Over time, consecutive Danish governments stood firm and refused to condemn the newspaper. They refused to introduce blasphemy laws and defied boycotts. To cave as Denmark did in 2023 was a symbolic moment.

Denmark was the first domino to fall. Other democracies were emboldened as long as Denmark held its ground. Now, we have Sweden using hate-speech laws to prosecute Iraqi refugees who have burnt the Koran. Tragically, one of those protesters, Salwan Momika, was killed in January days before the verdict. One of his co-accused was still convicted and fined. More recently, a man was arrested for burning a copy of the Koran in Manchester.

I think it’s fear driving these responses. It is really disturbing.

Brendan O’Neill was talking to Jacob Mchangama. Listen to the full conversation here: