Preferences for speech governance are polarized across 40 countries

The dilemma of balancing freedom of expression against limiting the spread of misinformation defines speech governance in today's information ecosystems. Yet, we lack cross-cultural, systematic evidence on how citizens prefer to solve this dilemma and why. To measure citizens’ preferences for speech governance, we surveyed people in 40 countries across ten world regions (N = 47,719; representative for age, gender, and political ideology). People are nearly evenly split between protecting free expression (51%) and preventing misinformation from spreading (49%). However, we find that this preference is politically polarized: in 32 out of 40 countries, right-leaning participants prioritize protecting free expression more than left-leaning participants (55% vs. 48%). This polarization pattern is amplified by political interest: The more interested in politics participants are, the more right-leaning participants support free speech and left-leaning participants want to prevent misinformation from spreading. These results showcase how difficult it is for people across the world to find balancing free speech against reducing misinformation. Moreover, these results also identify what could be a new cleavage of ideological polarization that has direct implications for governing expression in information ecosystems.