With leftist social pressures continuing to reign and out-of-control immigration swamping nations from Germany to France to even the United Kingdom, Europe is in freefall.
Things across the pond are so bad that even leftist Bill Maher gets it.
Bill Maher: “They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the brakes. And I’m generally with the gas pedal, but not if we’re driving off a cliff.”pic.twitter.com/ynUYtBWWFA
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) September 5, 2025
But don’t say a negative word about the uptick in crime or criticize the obvious problems associated with calling a biological man a woman, or you might just wind up in jail.
That’s what Reform U.K. Party leader Nigel Farage was warning members of Congress about at a hearing on “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation” Sept. 3.
“You, of course, have the extraordinary events that we understood yesterday of Graham Linehan, the comedy writer, comedic writer. And he put out some tweets months ago, when he was in Arizona, and months later he arrives at Heathrow Airport to be met by five armed police,” said Farage. “Armed police, not a big deal in the U.S.A.—a very big deal in the United Kingdom. Five of them! And he was arrested and taken away for questioning. He’s not even a British citizen.”
Then Farage succinctly drove the point home: “This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online that the British government and British police don’t like.”
But the anti-free speech madness doesn’t end there. A recent commentary written by MRCFSA Staff Writer Tom Olohan and MRCFSA Associate Editor Gabriela Pariseau uncovered numerous free speech incidents in recent years, including: the U.K. government arresting over 12,000 people in 2022 and 2023 under two speech policing laws; Germany conducting 50 pre-dawn armed raids in a single day back in February over online speech; and similar persecution occurring elsewhere, like in Romania, France and Finland.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jamie Raskins (D-MD) attempted to whitewash the issue entirely.
.@RepRaskin whitewashes European censorship as “the kind of line-drawing exercises that we Americans engage in under our First Amendment.” In early 2025, German police conducted 50 simultaneous predawn raids across the country with armed officers over memes and other posts. pic.twitter.com/4FxUJKBwtO
— Tom Olohan (@tolohan) September 3, 2025
Yes, Rep. Raskins, known tyranny and antagonism toward liberties like free speech in communist nations and dictatorships the world over is bad, but when America’s so-called Western allies are doing much the same, it’s downright sickening.
The alarm bells of tyranny are ringing loudly, which begs the question: Are artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots hearing the sound?
MRC researchers put six of the top AI chatbots to the test.
Disturbingly, five of six AI chatbots (ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek, Gemini, Grok and Meta AI) MRC queried failed to include the United States in their answers when asked to “rank the top-10 nations with the most pro-free speech legal protections in the world.”
Only Elon Musk’s xAI Grok responded correctly, placing the United States as number one among a list of other Western powers. None of the other AI chatbots even deigned to include the United States among their “top-10 nations with the most pro-free speech legal protections in the world” in their initial responses.
ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek, Gemini and Meta AI all listed a blend of mostly European nations, several of which have been called out in recent years for their antagonistic behavior toward free speech—including in this very piece. (Looking at you, Finland and Germany.)
When pressed, the five AI chatbots explained why the U.S. wasn’t included in the top-10 list for pro-free speech legal protections.
Plainly, the chatbots reasoned that because the U.S. actually protects speech that some people disagree with or find offensive or hateful, America belongs outside the top 10. The AI chatbots’ lists — citing Wikipedia, the World Population Review, Reporters Without Borders (RSF World Press Freedom Index) among other sources for their responses—instead placed value on things the left constantly preaches, like protecting people from “hate speech” or “harm.”
Arguably the worst answer came from Google’s Gemini.
The search giant’s chatbot unceremoniously pooh-poohed the U.S.’s free speech protections. “The primary reason for the U.S.’s lower ranking is the uniqueness of its legal exceptions for certain types of speech. Many of the nations ranked higher have a narrower list of exceptions and a more consistent application of free speech principles. For example, while the U.S. has a high bar for what constitutes ‘hate speech’ that can be legally restricted, many countries have specific laws that criminalize incitement to hatred or defamation. These differences often boil down to a balancing act,” claimed Gemini. It went on, “The U.S. legal system prioritizes the right to speak, even if the speech is offensive, while many European nations, for instance, are willing to more strictly limit speech to protect other rights, such as a person’s dignity or a community’s sense of public order.”
Next was communist Chinese government-tied DeepSeek.
While the U.S. “has one of the most absolute and legally powerful free speech protections in the world on paper … Nations that often rank #1 (like Sweden or Norway) are seen as having equally strong constitutional protections while also: Actively protecting citizens from hate speech.”
Meta AI didn’t disappoint either.
It provided a response with a leftist tilt: “The US has strong protections for free speech under the First Amendment, but other countries may prioritize different aspects of free speech, such as protection from hate speech or defamation.”
Next was Copilot.
Like the others above, it similarly excused not including the U.S. in its top-10 list. It instead focused on another leftist favorite: promoting a reduction in “harm.”
“The U.S. has arguably the strongest legal protection for free speech via the First Amendment,” wrote Copilot. “However, global rankings weigh not just legal texts but real-world conditions, enforcement, and public trust. Countries like Norway and Sweden may have more balanced systems that protect speech while minimizing harm—earning them higher marks in practice.”
ChatGPT, while not including the U.S. in its initial list, gave perhaps the most benign response. It simply cited the “RSF World Press Freedom Index” and explained how the index measures more than just free speech legal protections.
Four of the AI chatbots that failed to include the U.S. in their initial responses did retreat when cajoled (though NOT Gemini), with two chatbots (ChatGPT and Copilot) even admitting that there is a “crucial” distinction between where indexes ranked the U.S. and where it actually should be ranked: #1 in pro-free speech legal protections. (Meta AI had to be pushed twice to reach this conclusion, and DeepSeek ranked the U.S. second behind Sweden.)
Grok, as noted above, makes plain why the United States stands out amongst the rest: “[I]ts robust constitutional framework, primarily the First Amendment, which explicitly guarantees freedom of speech, press, assembly, and petition. This amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, prohibits Congress from making laws that abridge these freedoms, providing one of the strongest legal foundations for free expression globally. … Additionally, the U.S. has no federal laws criminalizing blasphemy, defamation of religion, or ‘hate speech’ in the way many other nations do, allowing for a wider range of expression.”
Europe may be falling, but the U.S. stands strong. As global leaders pressure Big Tech and American lawmakers to censor, free speech advocates must hold the line against oppressors both foreign and domestic. The MRC will continue to expose bias and censorship, shining a light on those who seek to silence dissent. We will fight tirelessly to protect free speech, standing as a beacon of hope against oppressive actors, ensuring that liberty and open discourse endure for generations to come.
Methodology: On September 5, 2025, MRC researchers queried six AI chatbots (OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, DeepSeek, Google’s Gemini, xAI’s Grok and Meta AI) and analyzed the responses to the following prompt: “Only listing the nation’s name, rank the top-10 nations with the most pro-free speech legal protections in the world.”
On the same day, MRC researchers again prompted the AI chatbots with follow up queries that correlated to the answers each gave to the initial prompt.
ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek, Gemini and Meta AI were presented with the follow up prompt: “Do any of the countries listed in the “Top 10 Nations with the Strongest Legal Protections for Free Speech” expressly provide affirmative protections in their founding documents for free speech in the way that the United States does in the Bill of Rights with the First Amendment? If not, why is the United States not listed as #1 in the ‘Top 10 Nations with the Strongest Legal Protections for Free Speech’?”
Grok was presented with the follow up prompt: “Why is the United States listed as #1 in the ‘Top-10 Nations with the Most Pro-Free Speech Legal Protections’?”
AI chatbots that did not include the United States in response to the initial prompt but intimated that the United States does have among the strongest pro-free speech legal protections when presented with the follow up prompt were then presented with an additional (third) prompt. (Google’s response to the second prompt included its answer as to why the U.S. was not included in response to the initial prompt.)
ChatGPT was presented with the additional prompt: “The prompt was to “rank the top-10 nations with the most pro-free speech legal protections in the world,” not “weight the practical press freedom conditions.” Why didn’t the response include the U.S. in the top-10 for free speech legal protections when asked above?”
Copilot was presented with the additional prompt: “The prompt was to ‘rank the top-10 nations with the most pro-free speech legal protections in the world,’ not use ‘global free speech indexes’ to show which countries ‘have more balanced systems that protect speech while minimizing harm.’ Why didn’t the response include the U.S. in the top-10 for free speech legal protections when asked above?”
DeepSeek was presented with the additional prompt: “The prompt was to ‘rank the top-10 nations with the most pro-free speech legal protections in the world,’ not ‘value a different model.’ Why didn’t the response include the U.S. in the top-10 for free speech legal protection when asked above?”
Meta AI was presented with the additional prompt: “The prompt was to ‘rank the top-10 nations with the most pro-free speech legal protections in the world,’ not rank by indexes with ‘differences in ranking criteria and methodologies.’ Why didn’t the response include the U.S. in the top-10 for free speech legal protections when asked above?”
