Freedom of Speech in Our Digital Age

By: Joshua Blond

In today’s world, social media, digital news outlets, and broadcast media shape how people communicate and engage in public debate. On the surface, it seems that anyone with internet access can freely express opinions to a global audience. Yet this impression is misleading. Many individuals and communities still face censorship, suppression, or intimidation that undermines true free speech.

Social media has lowered barriers to communication by allowing people to share information across borders. Grassroots campaigns, protests, and advocacy efforts often spread rapidly online, amplifying voices once excluded from traditional media. For instance, digital activism has been central to movements for racial justice, women’s rights, and government accountability (Gorwa, 2019).

Yet these platforms also introduce new restrictions. Companies such as Meta or X (formerly Twitter) moderate content through algorithms and internal policies, which sometimes result in opaque or biased removals. Fear of deplatforming or “shadow banning” can discourage individuals from posting controversial views. Thus, while digital tools enable expression, they also create new gatekeepers.

The First Amendment protects Americans from direct government censorship, but political and financial pressures still shape media freedom. In 2025, Congress rescinded over $1 billion in federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), forcing it to wind down operations (CPB, 2025). An executive order titled Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media explicitly targeted NPR and PBS for their perceived ideological leanings (White House, 2025). Critics argue these measures weaken independent journalism, reducing the diversity of voices in public discourse (OPB, 2025).

Such actions reveal a form of indirect censorship. While no law prevents PBS or NPR from speaking, undermining their funding restricts their ability to operate. This illustrates how governments may sidestep formal censorship while still constraining freedom of expression.

In many countries, restrictions are more direct. China maintains one of the most sophisticated censorship systems in the world. Its “Great Firewall” blocks foreign platforms, while domestic sites remove politically sensitive content within hours of posting (Zhu et al., 2013). Research shows that bypassing this censorship increases citizens’ awareness of protests abroad and skepticism of government narratives (Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, 2022). In other words, limiting information effectively shapes public opinion.

Elsewhere, repression is more absolute. In Turkmenistan, the government controls nearly all domestic media, while in North Korea, access to outside information is almost nonexistent (Human Rights Watch, 2024). In such contexts, citizens are not only silenced but denied the possibility of public debate altogether.

The tension between openness and control underscores that having a platform is different from being heard. Strengthening free expression requires a mix of solutions: ensuring transparency in how platforms moderate content, passing legal protections against political intimidation, developing decentralized communication tools, and expanding media literacy so citizens can evaluate information critically.

Ultimately, the digital era has expanded the reach of free speech, but it has also revealed new vulnerabilities. Social media may give individuals a louder voice, but governments and corporations retain significant power to suppress or shape discourse. A genuine commitment to free expression must therefore go beyond access to platforms, it must also defend the independence, diversity, and resilience of the voices that use them.

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Works Cited

Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (2025, August). Corporation for Public Broadcasting addresses operations following loss of federal funding. https://cpb.org/pressroom/Corporation-Public-Broadcasting-Addresses-Operations-Following-Loss-Federal-Funding

Gorwa, R. (2019). The platform governance triangle: Conceptualizing the interplay between law, norms, and architecture in social media content moderation. Policy & Internet, 11(2), 197–217.

Human Rights Watch. (2024). Turkmenistan: Events of 2023. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/turkmenistan

OPB. (2025, August). Not just Big Bird: Things to know about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. https://www.opb.org/article/2025/08/03/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-closure-funding-cuts/

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions. (2022). Does bypassing internet censorship in China change individual beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors? https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/does-bypassing-internet-censorship-china-change-individual-beliefs-attitudes-and

Wang, M., & Mayer, J. (2022). Self-censorship under law: A case study of the Hong Kong national security law. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.11636

White House. (2025, May). Ending taxpayer subsidization of biased media (Executive Order 14290). https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media/

Zhu, T., Phipps, D., Pridgen, A., Crandall, J., & Wallach, D. (2013). The velocity of censorship: High-fidelity detection of microblog post deletions. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.0597

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Photo by The Guardian