The balance between protecting free expression and addressing its potential harms remains a hotly debated issue in the United States. A new survey — following up on one conducted by YouGov in 2022 — finds that majorities of Americans agree with certain principles related to free speech, including that free speech involves dealing people who disagree with you (88% agree), that society should discourage people from expressing views that advocate violence (81%), that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of that speech (78%), and that it isn’t always a bad thing when people avoid publicly expressing views that may offend others (70%).
Other perspectives on free speech are more divisive. More disagree (46%) than agree (25%) that limiting the speech of a small number of people can expand freedom of speech overall. And nearly equal shares disagree (34%) and agree (38%) that what matters is the intent of the person speaking, not how what they say is understood. Americans are more likely to agree that the government is the biggest threat to free speech (54%) than that social media companies are (40%).
A little more than half of Americans (55%) say that the norms of socially acceptable speech are changing too quickly to keep up with, and 52% say they often worry that views they express will be misinterpreted in a negative way.
Majorities of Democrats (89%) and Republicans (88%) agree that part of exercising free speech is having to deal with people who disagree with you, but members of each party differ on some other issues related to free expression. More Republicans than Democrats (69% vs. 48%) agree that free speech has become more limited during their lifetimes. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to agree that society should generally discourage the expression of views that advocate for removing the civil rights of others (75% vs. 45%).
How Americans view some free speech issues has changed in recent years. The share of Americans saying that people who test the limits of free speech by sharing controversial views make a positive contribution to society has fallen by 8 percentage points since 2022, including by 18 points among Republicans. And relative to 2022, Republicans are now more likely (an increase of 16 points) to say that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
Compared to 2022, more Americans now agree that the government presents the biggest threat to free speech (an increase of 9 points, including an increase of 19 points among Democrats and a decline of 8 points among Republicans). The share of Democrats saying that the norms of acceptable speech are changing too quickly has increased by 11 points, while declining by 7 points among Republicans.
Related:
- Democrats and Republicans agree that exercising free speech means having to deal with disagreement
- How do Americans think the internet has affected free speech?
— Carl Bialik contributed to this article
See the results for this YouGov poll
Methodology: This article includes results from an online survey conducted January 30 - February 3, 2025 among 1,124 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of adult U.S. citizens. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.
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