Transatlantic Divide Over Free Speech Deepens as Poland Defends Censorship Laws

One year has passed since Vice President JD Vance delivered a pointed critique of European approaches to free speech at the Munich Security Conference, and the divide between American and European values on this fundamental liberty has only widened.

At last year’s conference, Vance warned the assembled European leaders that “the greatest threat the continent faces comes from within,” specifically targeting their criminalization of speech. His remarks about the United Kingdom’s particularly restrictive policies left the audience visibly stunned, according to reports from the gathering.

The intervening twelve months have not brought Europe closer to the American understanding of free expression. Instead, European nations have intensified enforcement of the Digital Services Act, legislation that mandates censorship of what authorities deem “illegal content,” “hate speech,” and “disinformation.” These categories remain troublingly vague and subject to political interpretation.

At this year’s Munich Security Conference, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski offered a direct rebuttal to Vance’s earlier criticism. His comments deserve careful examination, for they reveal the fundamental philosophical chasm separating American and European approaches to liberty.

“In the United States, it’s almost absolute. It’s almost impossible to win a case of defamation or libel,” Sikorski said. “In Europe, for good historical reasons, for example, in Poland it is forbidden to speak up on behalf of fascism and communism for very good historical reasons.”

Sikorski’s argument rests on the premise that Europe’s historical experience with totalitarianism justifies preemptive suppression of certain ideas. This represents a profound misunderstanding of how free societies defend themselves against tyranny.

The irony of a Polish official making this argument cannot be overstated. Poland’s own Lech Wałęsa, the electrician who became the face of the Solidarity movement and helped bring down communist rule, understood the relationship between free speech and freedom itself. Wałęsa warned that “when you silence people, you weaken your own country” and declared that “censorship is the enemy of truth.”

These were not abstract philosophical musings. Wałęsa lived under a regime that justified its censorship in the name of protecting society from dangerous ideas. The communist authorities claimed they were defending Poland from fascism and Western imperialism. They insisted their restrictions served the greater good.

The logic Sikorski now employs follows the same pattern. If a government must prohibit citizens from praising certain ideologies, it implicitly admits that its own values and systems cannot withstand open debate. This represents a vote of no confidence in democracy itself.

The American approach, enshrined in the First Amendment, proceeds from a different understanding. Free speech serves as democracy’s immune system. Bad ideas must be confronted and defeated in open discourse, not driven underground where they fester beyond scrutiny. When governments gain the power to determine which ideas may be expressed, that power inevitably expands to serve the interests of those in authority.

Europe’s Digital Services Act demonstrates this principle in action. What begins as restrictions on fascist and communist advocacy expands to encompass “disinformation” and “hate speech,” categories that shift with political winds. Today’s protected discourse becomes tomorrow’s prohibited content.

This represents more than a policy disagreement. It marks a genuine civilizational divide over the nature of freedom itself. Americans understand that liberty includes the right to be wrong, to offend, and to challenge prevailing orthodoxies. European elites increasingly view such freedom as dangerous and in need of management by enlightened authorities.

The question before the Western world is whether freedom of speech remains foundational to democratic society, or whether it has become a luxury that modern governments can no longer afford. History suggests that nations choosing the latter path do not remain free for long.