By Arthur Pacheco
Freedom of expression is at the heart of any democracy. It functions as a ‘vital breath’ that allows ideas to flourish and be exchanged. It also serves to denounce injustices and challenge power, power that is often misused due to the natural movement of moral degeneration and regeneration in society. This intermittent movement has happened and will always happen and marks the changes in regimes, types of political organization and even eras of human societies. When a society guarantees its citizens the right to demonstrate, provoke and dissent, it demonstrates political maturity and respect for the plurality of life. Obviously, there must be room even for words that may hurt or disturb, and in a modern democracy the community commits itself to the democratic contract, recognizing that there is no room for silencing.
The question that has come to the fore recently is about the limits of this freedom. How can this ideal be sustained when such expressions are distorted to the point of justifying attacks on democracy, whether internal or external? And what happens when this freedom is taken away from those who criticize power?
We can look at two cases on the world stage today. In Brazil, freedom of expression is present, but often misused. Since the 2022 elections, minority groups dissatisfied with the results have used social networks not to promote dialogue, but to spread disinformation and incite institutional ruptures, questioning the legitimacy of the electoral process without proof. The attacks of January 8, 2023 on the government buildings in Brasília (the Supreme Federal Court, the National Congress Palace and the Planalto Presidential Palace) are an example of this distorted use of freedom, which, instead of building justice, serves to fuel institutional corrosion. The institutional response to these actions, although criticized by some, seeks to establish itself within the due process of law. There are no arrests for disagreeing with the government; there are investigations and trials of individuals who actively participated in the destruction of public property and the attempt to destabilize the democratic rule of law. Freedom of expression remains protected, but the criminal use of this right to undermine democratic coexistence is challenged.
In the United States, the scenario is equally worrying, but has different nuances. Freedom of expression seems to be conditioned by the nationality of the speaker and the geopolitical position of the subject. The case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student who took part in peaceful protests against the war in Gaza at Columbia University and now faces the threat of deportation, illustrates how fragile freedom becomes in an environment dominated by tyrannical behavior. Without a criminal trial or formal charges, Khalil can be expelled on the grounds that his protests “harm the interests of American foreign policy”, resorting to “ideological” legal measures created during the cold war. This kind of curtailment – administrative, without transparency and without the full right to a defense – is not exclusive to authoritarian regimes, but occurs at the heart of the world’s once most celebrated liberal democracy. This paradox reveals that the country that has historically presented itself as a global defender of freedom of expression can actually weaken this right when confronted with strategic interests. Recent data from Reporters Without Borders (RSF, 2025) puts this situation into context: the United States occupies 45th place in the global ranking of press freedom, which means that at least a quarter of the world has a freer press than the country that represents the freedom of our apparently new world order. Just for the record, Brazil is ranked 92nd out of 180 countries.
The world of communication in social media can be treacherous and the ability to assimilate and interpret the amount of information we receive today can be compromised, even affecting our personal relationships (Taylor 2021). This raises alarm bells about the ephemeral truth of what have been called echo chambers within social media networks (Luzsa & Mayr, 2021). This happens in a moment where science is being discredited and conspiracy theories are rising. Some people call our era the era of post truth. Regardless of whether it is checked and verified or not, information becomes confined to specific niches in such a way that dialog is compromised. Although both face different challenges, a common concern lies in the use of communication as a field of dispute between power and truth. Moreover, there is a bitter irony in this comparison. During the 20th century, the United States participated in several coups d’états in Latin America, including Brazil, under the pretext of “protecting democracy”. The regimes that resulted from these interventions eliminated fundamental freedoms and turned repression into state policy. Today, it can be seen that practices that were once exported have returned back and adapted to the empire, using the immigration apparatus as a silencing tool within the US borders themselves.
Progressive Utilization Theory (Prout) offers an interesting ethical perspective to address the dilemma of freedom and responsibility. According to P.R. Sarkar, freedom must coexist with collective responsibility, while never being suppressed in the psychic and spiritual spheres. Referring to that he states:
“Every living being must have freedom in certain spheres of life. But this freedom must not be allowed to override the common cause, especially in the physical sphere. We have no right to go against the collective interest. (…) The scope of limiting individual freedom must be demarcated on the basis of the principles of pápa [vice] and pu?ya [virtue]. These principles have a fundamental meaning. Pápa means ‘going against the collective interest’, and pu?ya means ‘helping society and accelerating collective progress’” (Speeches on PROUT, 1959).
In Brazil, democracy faces abuses, but maintains the right to freedom of expression, protecting against those who use lies to justify institutional breakdown. In the United States, on the other hand, there is a growing risk that freedom of thought will be limited in a bureaucratic and selective way, denying even the right to defense. We see this in the U.S. government’s targeting of citizenship rights. This crisis, then, also touches on the idea of belonging and citizenship. Sarkar states:
“All men are citizens of the world by birth. Every man has the right to go and settle anywhere and live as a human being.”(The Great Universe: Discourses on Society, 1986).
For Prout, citizenship should not be defined by arbitrary borders or market interests, but by emotional, cultural and ecological ties. Being a citizen of a region implies inhabiting, contributing to, respecting and loving the place, rather than exploiting it economically from afar or being expelled from it for ideological reasons. This ethical bond is what legitimizes participation in public life, and freedom of expression is its natural consequence.
The real contemporary challenge is not just to ensure that people can speak, but to ensure that they are heard fairly. No voice, be it that of the committed immigrant or the conscientious citizen, should be silenced by the law, or by algorithms. Freedom of expression, therefore, is not just about the right to speak; it is, above all, the right to belong – to exist as a living consciousness in relation to the other. And like all life, this freedom needs space, listening and care in order to flourish.
References
- Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, Discourses on PROUT (Jamalpur: Ananda Marga Publications, 1959), 17-22 October discourse.
- Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, The Great Universe: Discourses on Society (Tiljala, Kolkata: Ananda Marga Publications, 1986).
- Reporters Without Borders (RSF), World Press Freedom Index 2025 (Paris: RSF, 2025), accessed April 14, 2025, https://rsf.org/en/index.
- Senado Federal (Brazil), Relatório final da CPI dos Atos Antidemocráticos (Brasília: Senado Federal, 2023), accessed April 14, 2025, https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2023/10/18/aprovado-relatorio-final-da-cpi-do-8-de-janeiro.
- BBC Brasil, “Who are those arrested for coup acts in Brasilia and what are they accused of,” last modified January 10, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/c4n09qv0yp9o.
- El País, “Una jueza de inmigración de Luisiana dictamina que el activista palestino de Columbia puede ser deportado,” published April 11, 2025, https://elpais.com/internacional/2025-04-11/una-jueza-de-inmigracion-de-luisiana-dictamina-que-el-activista-palestino-de-columbia-puede-ser-deportado.html.
- Taylor, Caitlin . “How Social Media Is Facilitating Hyper-Personal Communication and How This Can Be Damaging to Physical Skills and Relationships, yet Also the Mental Wellbeing of Individuals, Debating Communities and Networks XII.” Debating Communities and Networks XII, April 28, 2021. https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2021/2021/04/28/how-social-media-is-facilitating-hyper-personal-communication-and-how-this-can-be-damaging-to-physical-skills-and-relationships-yet-also-the-mental-wellbeing-of-individuals/.
- Luzsa, R., & Mayr, S. (2021). False consensus in the echo chamber: Exposure to favorably biased social media news feeds leads to increased perception of public support for own opinions. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 15(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2021-1-3