Muzzled democracies: free speech in times of authoritarian regression
The right to freedom of expression is presented as a cornerstone for the protection and consolidation of democracies, since through it, other human rights can be protected, guaranteed, and enforced. Through its various manifestations –such as the right to freedom of the press, access to information, and the right to protest, among others– it constitutes a guarantee for citizens against the State.
This value takes on special connotations in countries with very young representative democracies, characterized by judicial and legislative institutions that do not offer sufficient traditional counterbalances to very strong executive authorities. It is these democracies that are normally at a certain risk of regressing to authoritarianism, and in them, freedom of expression is evident as a fundamental limit that allows opinions and information to be obtained and disseminated, strengthening civil society and creating opportunities for individual participation.
That is why one of the greatest dangers to democratic life appears when this right is violated by the Government, which should be its main guarantor. By invoking reasons of “national security,” “public order,” “accuracy of information,” among others, decisions are made that seriously threaten the various manifestations of this human right, emptying it of meaning. This amounts to silencing that is intended to intimidate societies as a whole; it is a form of social disciplining.
Many of today’s Latin American governments follow these models of suffocating the media, intimidating journalists, prosecuting those with dissimilar political opinions—to prevent the population from access to certain news and information—and criminalizing protest. Thus, systematic attacks are carried out against communicators and media groups that present any kind of criticism of the actions of central governments. Where anyone with a contrary opinion is considered an enemy, violence is a constant response to dissent, a clear sign of authoritarianism.
In general terms, most of these leaders neither need nor want journalism. For them, critical media constitutes an obstacle that interferes with direct communication with the population. That is why social media is the ideal platform for them. With their short, high-impact messages, people hidden behind avatars, filter bubbles that reinforce prejudices, echo cameras, and bots that constantly replicate fake news, they can easily be used for disinformation and manipulated information, the creation of common sense, and to eliminate rational critical discussion through apparent discrepancy, gaining popularity at the cost of creating calculated confusion in societies. Therefore, one of the main strategies of these figures is often the total dismantling of critical media, which ends up increasing the violation of the collective right of citizens to be informed and to know the expression of others’ opinions.
In accordance with that, the right to protest—which is part of primary public order and makes democracy possible by being an essential instrument for political participation and citizen expression—has also been restricted. In Latin America, recent years have seen an increase in legislation that tends to criminalize protest and enables its repression through strict security protocols. These have become a clear method of intimidating a population that is uncomfortable and destabilizing, as well as a cautionary instrument that intends to dissuade and discredit any attempt at manifestation.
A clear demonstration of the previously mentioned is the data verified by different organizations. According to the 2024 Latinobarómetro, 66% of people in the region do not say what they think about politics, and 56% believe that expressing their opinions publicly has negative consequences. As a result, 44% of people choose not to do this in public, only 9% do it in social media, and 4% in manifestations or protests. In addition, the IDEA 2025 index confirms that declines in press freedom in Latin America are contributing to a weakening of civic space. Reporters Without Borders, in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index, has indicated that journalism confronts persistent structural and economic challenges in the region, including media concentration, fragile public information services, and precarious working conditions. They showed that 22 of the 28 Latin American countries have seen declines in their economic indicator and that financial pressure is leading some media companies to serve political or commercial interests, or even to publish official communiqués. At the same time, it was emphasized that, due to hostile environments, self-censorship has become a survival reflex for many other media groups. Nevertheless, it has been confirmed that the most significant setbacks in the region can also be explained by the authoritarian tendencies of central governments, as exemplified by Argentina (87th), Peru (130th), El Salvador (135th), and Nicaragua (172nd).
But this is nothing new in Latin America, where similar experiences happened cyclically during the 20th century. It’s the ghost of authoritarian regression that still haunts us. In this sense, even though each country has its own unique characteristics, the external reference of the region’s political and social changes is important because they have an influence and, in many cases, some of their characteristics are taken as a model by other governments.
In many of these models, we observe how freedom of expression only matters if journalism supports the interests of the ruling party. As Anne Applebaum mentioned, these are the clercs who renounce their commitment to objective truth, key pieces in the machinery of these governments that require their intellectual collaboration to justify and consolidate their new narratives. These paradigms are, in reality, nothing more than old debates tinted with nostalgic-reparative rhetoric, which, until now, were waiting to be exacerbated by circumstances or chance. The much-lauded “culture war” brings with it the need to destroy many social rights, a great contradiction when most of these governments identify themselves as defenders of true “freedom”. A freedom that has little to do with what most of our constitutions, international conventions, and the standards of modern thought proclaim, and much more to do with Orwell’s Thought Police (1984), which seeks to rewrite history to adapt it to what these new parties consider to be the true version of events. A new form of conducting politics characterized by post-truth, a continuous and systematic manipulation of reality to satisfy specific political interests, alternative truths that feel like truths, end up becoming part of people’s identity and are presented as criticism in the name of freedom. These, unlike the lies and frauds of the past, put the entire factual reality on the battlefield, ensuring that –as the models of the 20th century intended– no one believes in anything anymore.
In a democratic society, it is necessary to guarantee the greatest possible circulation of news, ideas, and opinions, as well as the broadest possible access to information for citizens as a whole. There can be no democracy without freedom of expression and social protest, because these are manifestations of discontent. Contrary to guaranteeing this in the region, there is a growing trend toward projects in which anything that is not in line with official public opinion is attacked and repressed. In this way, it is often said that the need to implement these methods is inseparable from the economic, social, and cultural policies that accompany them; only in this way can certain governments maintain the illusion that a large majority supports their decisions.
Political regimes come and go, but bad habits remain, wrote Ignacio Silone in The Choice of the Comrades. May this old-new habit of silencing others not become crystallized in our present. May the expanding Latin American world that we began to see after the dictatorships of the 20th century prevail, may the most essential rights for life in democracy be respected, may saying what one thinks not be a problem, may misinformation and information abuse not consume us.
Federica Carnevale, Fibgar contributor.
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