Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The US Constitution. What a beautiful piece of paper, such a nice theory. Yet your current president is circumventing Congress. Your president is bullying states. You don't even have a functional popular vote. Your SCOTUS is dysfunctional. And, this 1st amendment, is that why peaceful protestors got shot by rubber bullets when they were protesting against the war in Iraq? Which, as it turned out, was started for dishonest reasons. You folks also were first with DMCA. Yet we don't have BS like filibuster and gerrymandering.

There's a good reason why on every half-serious index about freedom of speech or freedom of press, the best countries are Scandinavian and Switzerland, followed by West-Europe. And that data is from before the current orangutan is in office.





Thats like asking kim jong un who the freest country is and being proud that he say its north korea

'Being proud that he say' [sic]. You're not even a native English speaker, are you, 'greg'?

First you say freedom of speech is about after the speech (it is about before the speech, as after that the law is applied pragmatic).

Then you come with this KJU joke. North Korea doesn't make these indices. [1] [2] [3]. In each of these, USA is decidedly below the vast majority of the free West, including the very countries I mentioned before, each of which couldn't be further from North Korea. It is also Trump during Trump 1 who was positive about KJU (IIRC before the Rocket Man rhetoric, but still), and who is being a shill for one of North Koreans partners (China by proxy / Russia). Mind you, all of these sources are post-Trump 1 yet pre-Trump 2 (ie. from Biden 1 era).

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy...

[2] https://rsf.org/en/rsf-world-press-freedom-index-2025-econom...

[3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-i...


By one of your own references USA is in the top 3 for freedom of speech.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...


Yep, in fafs in 2021. Pew 2015: 8th. gsod 2023: 28th.

On all of the freedoms, USA tends to do best on freedom of speech. But how can you say such, when the press has less freedom than in other rich West countries? Isn't that counter interactive?


I didn't say it, your sources did.

> There's a good reason why on every half-serious index about freedom of speech or freedom of press, the best countries are Scandinavian and Switzerland, followed by West-Europe. And that data is from before the current orangutan is in office.

Can you share your half-serious indicies?


> Can you share your half-serious indicies?

I already shared them.

The Democracy Index is by The Economist [1]. The USA was #28 there (2024), well below Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, and well below Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and various others. That's from 2024, before Trump's attack on the US democracy.

World Press Freedom Index by Reports Without Borders [2]. The USA is #57 in this list (2025), in the yellow color ('problematic').

Also, take note that both of these values are world-wide under threat, and the USA is part of being under this threat.

You also wrote in your previous post:

> By one of your own references USA is in the top 3 for freedom of speech.

But that one has incomplete data. It lacks data from like half the world. Finland, Iceland, The Netherlands, Switzerland (each countries doing well on every other index) aren't included.

> I didn't say it, your sources did.

Yeah, they couldn't know your country would be nearing a constitutional crisis by end of 2025.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index


both of these sources are European

Which data sources would you point to for ranking freedom of speech by country?

That’s a great question. The answer (of course) depends on what result you want to get and nothing else.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: