So basically the Swedish social democrats want to remove free speech from all EU citizens to “protect the children”
Read more here (the link leads to mullvad.net)
I don’t agree with what this proposal is aiming to do (and goes against prior EU related privacy rulings), but unfettered free speech isn’t as “free” as the average American thinks it is, besides that the EU already doesn’t have free speech. Many regions ban Nazi related speech for obvious historical reasons.
I’d reconsider using America’s “free speech” as a model as they barely practice what they preach. Sure they have free speech, but they lack privacy protection mechanisms that then allow their police to skirt the rules and obtain evidence using tools that completely breach the veil of privacy, something many EU countries (including my own) have voted can never be used. The scope of intel gathering their intelligence community is capable of already is at a level where privacy no longer exist and all you’re left with is the illusion of it.
What I’m saying is, sure this proposal is bad, but what we need isn’t free speech, but protected privacy. Something the EU is having some decent success with already (compare to the US where this is conveniently forgotten as technology improves, see the earlier police argument to see what that leads to). Speech isn’t going to be the only problem, as cameras achieve the ability to do facial recognition and track you everywhere (something I know EU is/has banned, see the “AI act”), and more technology allows for other types of tracking