Traditionally, liberals have been regarded as open to different viewpoints and receptive to new ideas. Around six months ago, classical liberal Bill Maher sat down for an interview in which he said, “My politics haven't changed. They've changed” [1]. Maher was referencing the increasingly hostile environment surrounding free speech among the political left. While some may argue it is anecdotal, Maher's words represent a broader hollowing out of values among modern-day progressives. This is not to exempt the political right of their free speech hostilities—such as when Trump advocated prison time for people who burn American flags or wanted to revoke visas for college students critical of Israel—but rather to juxtapose the origins of traditional liberalism with its modern-day form [2]. Free speech is a principle that can afford zero compromise. Any abridgment of speech deserves severe criticism, especially when espoused by a modern-day progressive movement that contradicts the very principles of free expression that originally defined it. To the chagrin of John Locke's liberalism, the modern-day left has prioritized intellectual coddling while serving self-interests at the expense of its reputation.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a famed nonprofit organization which fights for civil liberties and constitutional rights, caught headlines in the 1970s when ACLU attorney David Goldberg openly defended the free speech rights of Nazis to protest in Skokie, Illinois [3]. To add to the tensions, Skokie was a predominantly Jewish area and home to many Holocaust survivors. Goldberg, a Jewish man himself, defended those he found reprehensible under the virtues of standing on the principle of the First Amendment, which entitles Americans to freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition. However, at a 2017 ACLU event aimed at celebrating Goldberg, speaker after speaker argued that “free speech rights of the far right were not worthy of defense by the ACLU,” while other ACLU officials argued the legitimacy of turning away cases defending “hate speech.” After the event, Goldberg said, “I got the sense it was more important for ACLU staff to identify with clients and progressive causes than to stand on principle… liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind” [4].  

In the wake of the first Trump administration, the ACLU budget nearly tripled, as it was the poster child for resisting Trump's overreach [5]. Yet, from 2017 to 2019, the words “First Amendment,” “Free Speech,” or any reference to universities violating speech rights are utterly absent in the ACLU's annual reports [6]. In the absence of rigid free speech standards, what does the modern-day ACLU stand for? 51 percent of modern-day democrats support making “hate speech” a criminal offense [7]. Defending speech becomes a more challenging endeavor when more than half of your likely base is content with setting speech limitations. Routinely, devout progressives conflate the defense of the right to hateful speech with an endorsement of it. The authentically liberal position is far from an endorsement of hatred, bigotry, or any type of prejudice, but rather an uncompromising effort to prevent a precedent of speech infringement. This is not to suggest all speech is protected; threats or sincere incitements of violence or panic have never been protected speech. Yet, especially on college campuses, there seem to be efforts to reclassify words as violence or overindulge definitionally as to what constitutes incitement of violence. 

The era of trigger warnings represents a historic shift in youth sentiment toward intellectual pampering. While the existence of trigger warnings is not in itself censorship of free speech, it fosters an environment hostile to open thought and critical thinking. Instead, it supports rigid political correctness and academic dullness. In 2015, Harvard professor Jeannie Suk Gersen wrote an article in The New Yorker about law students asking professors not to teach rape law. In one case, there was even advocacy to exclude the word “violate” from coursework as it may serve as a trigger [8]. Multiple US universities now classify asking Latino or Asian students “where they are from” as microaggressions [9]. Readings like The Great Gatsby now require customary trigger warnings because of their portrayal of misogyny [10]. Ten universities within the California school system classify statements like “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” as microaggressions [11]. In 2013, University of Central Florida (UCF) professor Hyung-il Jung was suspended after a student reported him for making a joke in response to how bored his students looked in lecture: “It looks like you guys are being slowly suffocated by these questions… Am I on a killing spree or what?” [12]. In response to these “threatening” comments, UCF suspended Jung and required him to obtain written certification from a mental health expert stating he was not a threat to himself or others before he could return to campus [13]. The same year, a student group at UCLA staged a sit-in protest at Professor Val Rust's lecture to express concerns about campus hostility towards students of color [14]. While Rust was not explicitly named, the group implied his teachings were microaggressive because he had pointed out that a student incorrectly capitalized the first letter of the word indigenous. The student claimed this insulted her heritage despite it being a writing course focused on grammatical correctness. In 2015, a professor published a Vox article under a pseudonym titled “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me.” In this article, the professor said, “I have intentionally adjusted my teaching materials as the political winds have shifted… We’ve seen bad things happen to too many good teachers” in reference to teachers facing top-down disciplinary measures or firings in response to hyper-sensitive student complaints [15].  

A common rebuttal to criticisms of such cancel culture is that while it may be harmful, it is rare enough to be insignificant. Assuming that this claim is accurate for the sake of argument, administrations in most of these instances affirm environments of student radicalization by making these practices formal policy, like when ludicrous student concerns with professor Hyng-il Jung are legitimized and harshly responded to. The fact that some of these egregious complaints have been institutionalized speaks to the degree of their presence. American universities used to be central to the spirit of the First Amendment. It was understood that bad ideas were defeated by the advocacy of good ideas rather than the censorship or discouragement of unfavorable speech, which can be subjective. Coddling students in their university bubbles is additionally damaging because it erodes toughness at a time when we need it most. An absence of intellectually tough individuals entering the workforce contributes to a system of upholding the very issues in need of meaningful reform. That is principally because adequately addressing consequential matters, whether it be political corruption, wealth inequality, or criminal justice reform, is uninviting to the cognitively malleable. Generally, life is inherently “triggering,” so creating the expectation of society to cater to one’s every intellectual need is counterproductive. Free speech does not end where feelings begin. 

Beyond cultural concerns, the mass suppression of speech on social media platforms is undeniable. Now, public email exchanges show Rob Flaherty, White House director of digital media under Biden, routinely pressuring large-scale social media outlets like Meta to censor COVID “misinformation” [16]. Over an extensive period, Flaherty routinely sent emails to social media companies, coercing them into only permitting state-approved information regarding COVID-19. “State-approved” information at the time viewed now broadly-accepted theories regarding natural immunity and the lab leak theory as conspiratorial or “misinformation.” This led to the systematic suppression and de-platforming of users, such as epidemiologists Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, who made statements about children with prior immunity not requiring COVID-19 immunizations. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook and asked them to take down “certain COVID-19 content including humor and satire” [17]. Zuckerberg now describes the government pressure as “wrong” and says, “We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” While Trump gave credence to the lab leak theory, President Biden accused him of “fanning racism” and initially shut down the State Department's investigation into the origins of the virus [18, 19]. Despite widespread efforts from social media platforms and government officials to suppress the lab leak theory, the US Energy Department and Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) now assess it as the most likely theory in explaining the origins of COVID-19 upon Biden's re-opening of the investigation [20, 21]. 

On June 3, 2024, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci testified in front of Congress. During his testimony,  he said, “there was no science behind it,” in reference to six-foot social distance policies, which he later elaborated meant, “there was no clinical trial behind it” [22]. When asked about requiring children to wear masks in public and at school and whether or not he had read any science-based reports to back these policies, Fauci said, “You know, I might have… But I don’t recall specifically that I did. I might have” [23]. Where was the mass censorship of large-scale government agencies like the C.D.C. or individuals like Fauci for enforcing policies backed by unfounded “science?” This underscores the dangers of replacing public discourse with a unilateral arbiter of the “truth.” Throughout the pandemic, there was never unanimity among medical officials regarding the various issues related to COVID-19. Despite this, one perspective was granted control of informing and enforcing policies on the public. 

Furthermore, in April 2019, what is now understood to be Hunter Biden's laptop was dropped off at a Delaware repair store for water damage [24]. Unable to reach whoever dropped off the laptop after many attempts, the store owner alerted federal authorities, who soon after issued a federal subpoena and seized the laptop that December. Before turning over the laptop, the shop owner made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former mayor Rudy Giuliani [25]. The New York Post eventually received the copied hard drive and, in an explosive story, leaked emails alleging that then-Vice President Biden used his authority to help his son's business dealings in Ukraine [26]. Within hours of publishing the story, Twitter completely blocked it from being shared even within direct messaging, a move typically reserved for stopping the spread of child pornography. Facebook also systematically suppressed the story's circulation [27]. This move by social media companies came just after the F.B.I. approached them in prior weeks to suggest that they be on “high alert” and warn them that “there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election [and] there's about to be some kind of dump that's similar to that” [28].  Released internal communications from Facebook show the company’s then-Vice President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, sent a memo stating, “Obviously, our calls on this could colour the way an incoming Biden administration views us more than almost anything else” [29]. Despite open communication and various warnings of incoming “Russian disinformation” with social media companies preceding the New York Post’s story, the F.B.I. abstained from answering direct questions regarding the laptop’s authenticity upon its release, which further led conditioned media companies to conclude it was Russian disinformation [30]. In the wake of the F.B.I.'s silence, 51 former intelligence officials signed a document outlining their belief that the Post story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” even with Hunter Biden's laptop actively being under government custody [31]. 

Despite this, over a year later, the original critic of the Post article, The New York Times, published an article stating that the emails relating to Hunter Biden's alleged shady business dealings were “authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation” [32]. Content from the laptop was used to federally prosecute Hunter Biden for gun violations, which further validated the existence of the laptop [33]. Former Twitter executives now refer to their response as a “mistake,” while Zuckerberg referred to the situation, saying, “It sucks... I think in the same way that having to go through a criminal trial but being proven innocent in the end sucks” [34]. 

While Twitter and Facebook reversed their policy on suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, the deep-rooted process of de-platforming politically damaging speech should be daunting to constitutionalists and true liberals, who traditionally champion discourse. Intelligence agencies' inclination to scapegoat journalism as “Russian disinformation” undermines legitimate assertions of foreign interference while raising concerns of party or figure loyalty within what are supposed to be non-partisan bodies. Scrutinizing journalism is a necessity in filtering out falsehoods, but assigning media to be a byproduct of Russian propagandists is a method of squashing viewership rather than a means of scrutiny. At best, social media companies were misled by the F.B.I. and dubious in their initial handling of the laptop scandal; at worst, they were a complicit machine currying political favors for the next presidential administration. 

Routinely, the only time Democrats publicly talk about the rights of private companies is about their decisions to censor speech on their platforms. At a hearing referencing Twitter's banning of the Hunter Biden laptop story, Congressman Jamie Raskin said, “Twitter is a private media company. In America, private media companies can decide what to publish” [35]. However, Twitter is not a simplistic media company, rather, it is a company that emulates the speech of individuals and is the epicenter of the digital-First Amendment. It is exclusively disingenuous to equate Twitter—or any social media company for that matter—with networks like NBC or Fox, which are businesses predicated on generating their own internal stories. Furthermore, service providers are not meaningfully liable for speech third-party users post under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 [36]. This was a reasonable move by Congress to shut down possibly severe liabilities that would have drastically inhibited the Internet’s growth. In light of this, the argument that social media companies need to employ censorship tactics to mitigate litigation is essentially futile. Twitter should reserve the right to maintain standards for employees and speech on behalf of their organization, not cherry-pick what speech is acceptable with government pressure on a platform that digitizes our constitutional rights. The left's dismissal and repeated attempts at undermining legitimate discourse should be met with the most criticism from authentic liberals, especially in instances where their interests lie almost exclusively with advancing the agendas of democratic politicians.  

President Kennedy once said, “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” The broader argument that the government or any individual company bears responsibility for eradicating “misinformation” is predicated on a belittling thesis that American society is too stupid to think, and therefore, elites should be perpetually in control of narratives. Conceptually, there is little more hostile to the virtues of liberalism than this way of thinking. Sincerely damaging speech—speech that materially damages others—is already outlawed. Specifically, defamation of others, perjury, false statements to government officials, or inciting panic or violence are barred by the law [37]. However, the First Amendment creates a “breathing space” that even protects the false statements and hyperbole that are “inevitable in free debate,” per the Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan [38]. Contrary to public belief, even certain instances of advocating violence are protected via the Brandenburg v. Ohio ruling as long as the speech is not “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action" or "likely to incite or produce such action"[39]. The court has also ruled the government may not regulate “false ideas,” and that “falsity alone may not suffice to bring the speech outside the First Amendment.” Even false factual statements receive constitutional protection, barring defamation [40]. In a world indeed plagued by misinformation, the solution cannot be delegating the role of speech arbiter to a government or companies who are evidently complicit in espousing misinformation themselves. 

Beyond the topic of misinformation, regulating “hate speech” is equally dangerous. Precedents of speech infringement welcome truly dangerous ideologies, ideologies interested in nanny-state governments, and delegative freedom. The more pragmatic argument is that banning “hate speech,” which is already problematically subjective, does not eliminate hateful ideas. Banning hate speech arguably stokes radicalization, as seen with the rise of Neo-Nazi groups in Germany despite bans and the creation of more radical religious factions in Turkey amidst attempts to exclude certain religious groups [41]. Banning condemnable speech only ensures it will not face public debate, scrutiny, or widespread recognition as disgraceful, not prevent the possible dangers associated with those who hold reprehensible or prejudiced views. The modern wave of progressivism that is open-minded to censorship and environments of speech intimidation is most hostile to its origins: liberalism. Liberalism is being molded into something uninviting to individuals akin to its original tenets: individualism, freedom, and equal rights. Striving to foster a hyper-welcoming environment of idea generation and exchange that discredits and triumphs falsehoods and hate through sheer volume is imperative for grounding modern-day liberalism and upholding the most virtuous ideals.