[9dev]

So totally free, unless you criticise the empero… err, Trump or the government, of course. Or if you're against Israeli settlements. Or in favour of humane treatment of the People of Palestine. Or have information on the customers of Jeffrey Epstein. Or…

[laughing_man]

You can say all those things. Will some people think you're an idiot and refuse to do business with you? Sure. But you're not going to be arrested for things you say in the US unless you're making threats.

[9dev]

Tell that to the detained foreign students which participated in Israel protests.

[laughing_man]

They're not criminal defendants, though. These are people who have violated their visas and are losing their right to be in the US.

[9dev]

They violated their visas by virtue of having the wrong opinion. At the time they voiced this opinion, there was no indication this would result in the revocation of their visas, so there's that.

Also, I was under the impression the constitution referred to everyone on American soil equally when it comes to the fundamental civil rights, which includes freedom of speech, the right to due process, and the right to gather; yet, several people have been detained, without due process, for their speech, or for peaceful assembly.

[laughing_man]

Again, there's a big difference between being charged with a crime and having your visa revoked. If you're in the US on a visa you're a guest of the country and only have the right to be here as long as do (and not do) the things you agreed to when you applied for the visa.

[9dev]

Again, these students first had their visa revoked, and were then detained without a lawyer, and taken away to an unknown location.

The constitution protects free speech, regardless of citizenship. Having their visa revoked for inconvenient speech is problematic in itself, but using that as a ploy to strip people of their fundamental rights is completely unacceptable.

[umanwizard]

Let me a bit more precise. I'm not claiming that the US actually always follows its own standards, or that there aren't authoritarian oversteps of power -- there are.

I'm just saying that the American definition of freedom of speech (whether the authorities follow it in practice or not) is unusually expansive. Edge cases like hate speech against particular ethnic groups, public insults, open support for terrorist organizations, etc. are much more likely to be legally protected in the US than in other countries, even including other liberal democracies.

[9dev]

That used to be the case, and I agree in principle. With the current administration, however, this is no longer true. Freedom of speech stops being free speech if the government detains people and revokes visas for having a certain opinion, tries to dictate the curriculum at universities, forces trans people to their birth gender, acts against lawyers with the wrong clients, excludes unwanted media from press conferences or sues them altogether… this list goes on for a while.

Donald Trump is a danger to the fundamental rights granted by the constitution, and the republicans are assisting him in tearing it down.

[umanwizard]

Okay, but we're getting a little off topic. The point I was responding to was about whether it's legal to share information in a totally apolitical scenario where normal laws presumably still apply.

[9dev]

That it would, but the world isn’t apolitical and freedom of speech is not a strong argument as it used to be.

[mvdtnz]

Well I'm not American but I feel like all I have read for the last 8 months has been American organisations and American people criticising Trump, the US government and Israel. I am not aware of penalties for these orgs or people, do you have examples?

[9dev]

There are countless examples, and they are easily accessible via the news or your preferred search engine. Here is a selection:

  * https://www.ibanet.org/Trumps-assault-on-the-First-Amendment
  * https://theconversation.com/x-252706
  * https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/x-rcna208057
  * https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/23/trump-harvard-michigan-dei.html