What does 2025’s free speech crackdown mean for Americans?

In February, weeks after President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Vice President J.D. Vance took to the stage at the Munich Security Conference to issue a warning cry. Europe, according to Vance, faced a slew of existential threats, one of which was the “retreat” of free speech. (This was largely in critique of the EU’s social media regulations, which are meant to curb misinformation and hate speech.) “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square,” said Vance.

Vance’s warning cry, it now appears, would have been better suited for American soil. As the first year of Trump’s second term comes to a close, the question isn’t how the government infringed on free speech, but frankly, how it hasn’t. This year marked a rise in censorship that experts say they haven’t seen since the McCarthy era, with virtually no sector left unscathed (public square, be damned). So, what does that mean for Americans as we head into 2026?

To understand the real stakes of free speech, it’s necessary to see how its erosion becomes normalised – incrementally, and often quietly. In the past year alone, The Wall Street Journal was sued for reporting on Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, while PBS and NPR faced funding cuts over alleged “bias” and “woke propaganda”. Universities have been mandated to rid campuses of language relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Smithsonian Institution, which runs the country’s major public museums, faced federal review over allegedly promoting “divisive, race-centred ideology,” while military-run schools were barred from carrying books relating to race and gender. The list goes on. A recent report by nonprofit advocacy group Free Press found that the administration’s 2025 infractions numbered in the hundreds. As the report notes, “The sheer volume of chilling attacks has helped ensure that even the most egregious assaults quickly fall out of the news cycle and public consciousness.”

While much of this erosion has slipped quietly out of view, one event in particular lodged itself in the public consciousness: the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Though far from the only censorship-related flashpoint of 2025, his death cemented free speech as one of the year’s defining political and cultural battlegrounds. Kirk’s death presented multiple ironies. For starters, he himself was a proponent of free speech, yet he was assassinated at one of his open-air debates. Yet what followed was not a renewed commitment to expression, but a fresh wave of suppression. Many people were fired for remarks made in the wake of his passing, the most notable, albeit temporary, being comedian Jimmy Kimmel. In the weeks following Kirk’s death, a political right once deeply concerned with cancel culture found a home in the term “consequence culture”, a reframing wielded against those it disagreed with. 

“One thing that the death of Charlie Kirk threw into sharp relief was that in a hyper-polarised and hyper-politicised environment, free speech principles can often be wielded to actually silence or censor speech,” says David Snyder, the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a California-based litigation and policy advocacy group which allows people to submit queries on free speech issues. Repro Uncensored, another organisation that tracks threats to free speech, has also witnessed upticks in censorship this year, specifically on social media. “As the digital sphere takes over our minds and words, a lot of [censorship] happens digitally,” says Martha Dimitratou, the group’s executive director. Founded in 2024, the nonprofit was created after its founders noticed a rise in censorship in the reproductive health space. Since then, Repro Uncensored’s focus has expanded. Its website now houses a “report an incident” tool, where users can seek help if they feel their content is being unfairly suppressed.

The sheer volume of chilling attacks has helped ensure that even the most egregious assaults quickly fall out of the news cycle and public consciousness

One form of censorship Repro frequently campaigns against is online suppression, from ads being removed and accounts deleted to the more opaque practice of shadowbanning. Dimitratou notes that these decisions are increasingly arbitrary, often communicated through vague messages like “Your account doesn’t follow community guidelines,” with little recourse for appeal. “It's a free speech issue,” says Dimitratou. “People are literally trying to express their ability to say what they want, and they're getting censored in ways that are obvious, but also in ways that are not so obvious, often by algorithmic design.” 

In traditional media, Dimitratou also points to the dismantling of Teen Vogue as a stark example of press freedom being quietly eroded. One of the few major outlets that spoke directly to young people, the publication became known for its amplification of social issues, extensively covering topics like abortion and racial justice. In November, the magazine’s parent company laid off a majority of its team and announced that it would be folded into Vogue.  “It’s literally people’s way of thinking and shaping that is silenced,” says Dimitratou. “That's a very good example of how censorship is working in a very systematic way.”

So, what does this all mean for Americans? Firstly, expressing your views freely may come at greater personal risk than before. Instances such as JD Vance telling private employers to fire people who seemed to be critical of Kirk, for example, or FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatening Jimmy Kimmel’s show on a podcast, exemplify the most public-facing cases. “These are extreme reactions we have not seen in generations in this country,” Professor Samantha Barbas, a legal historian at the University of Iowa, says. For non-citizens, the risks can be even more severe. At Tufts University, for example, an international student was detained after writing an op-ed that criticised her school’s response to the war in Gaza. (It’s important to note that, in America, non-citizens physically present in the country have the same First Amendment rights as citizens.)

The crackdown also means that cultural attitudes about who is allowed to say what, and when and where they’re allowed to say it, are changing. As Barbas notes, attitudes towards free speech are becoming “more restrictive” as people become increasingly intolerant of points of view that conflict with theirs. The ripple effects of this shift were reflected in a recent study conducted by the Freedom Forum, which found that 65 per cent of Americans say they are afraid to speak freely, with “fear of a violent response” taking the lead as the most cited reason. “It has become a very uncivil culture,” says Barbas. 

The layered, multi-pronged policing of speech that defined 2025 should concern all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. It has also begun seeping into local government, where officials, taking cues from Washington, are increasingly threatening press freedoms. Snyder points to cases like Shasta Scout, a nonprofit newsroom that was cut off from information about upcoming elections after a chief election official objected to its perceived “political lean.” “One of the things that is alarming to me is that in many of these cases, there is so much happening from day to day that there isn’t really even time for there to be much protest,” he says. 

Acts of protest will be increasingly necessary as the country moves deeper into Trump’s presidency and cases of suppression continue to multiply. The core principle of free speech is that all citizens – not just those aligned with the political majority – can express their views without fear of retaliation. It’s a cornerstone of democracy, and when it’s undermined, it sets a dangerous precedent for future government interference. For people like Snyder, the nation’s growing amnesia about how free speech is meant to function runs counter to the very foundations of American democracy itself. “I fear that people in and outside the government are losing the muscle memory of our fundamental rights – that they’re forgetting that the government serves the people, not the other way around.”