Introduction
Over the past decades, populism has gained significant influence in contemporary politics around the world. The “populist” label is used to characterize several contemporary administrations and political leaders, including Jair Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Nicolas Maduro, Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Viktor Orban, Daniel Ortega, and Donald Trump. Given its ingrained opposition to accountability mechanisms, populism has been a threat to democratic institutions and norms and a driving force of contemporary illiberalism.
Given the constant conceptual arguments, it is important to clarify the meaning of populism. I define populism as a political movement defined by a vision of politics as irreconcilably divided into “the people” and “the elites.” Who “the people” and the “elites” are depends on the ideological strands of populism (left and right), as well as the specific concerns and obsessions of leaders, whether economic, military, political, intelligence, or financial.
The populist view of communication blends absolutist positions on “free speech” with romantic, nationalist views of the people as the only legitimate representation of authentic expression. It understands public speech as a constant struggle between popular voices and elites determined to muzzle popular expressions. This vision appears in populism’s praise for “popular voices” and “the silenced majority,” as well as criticisms of “the press as enemy,” “the oligarchic press,” “news monopolies,” “lamestream media,” and “cancel culture.” Because the leader and the people are assumed to be always correct, holding the government accountable is either superfluous or, worse, an attempt by elites to curb and undermine popular rule.
Right-wing populism generally denounces media and academic elites for suppressing the people’s voice. Left-wing populism accuses political and economic elites of silencing popular expression to maintain capitalist and imperialist interests. For both strands of populism, elite censorship of “the people’s voice” is not incidental or accidental—it is an essential component of the system to be defeated.
Contemporary far-right populism embraces the libertarian rhetoric of free speech when it denounces that it suffers censorship. It embraces an absolutist notion of “free speech,” without communicative or social guardrails, objectives, or concerns for potential harm. By doing so, it has eviscerated important nuances about the conditions, the purpose, and the perils of free speech, as laid out by liberal philosophers (from John Stuart Mill to Isaiah Berlin) and international jurisprudence. For example, it sidelines liberal concerns about the need to balance speech rights with other human rights and social considerations, as well as linking speech to the pursuit of truth and critical inquiry.
On both sides of the North Atlantic, including France, Germany, and the United States, right-wing populism has successfully moved the issue of “free speech” crisis from the margins to the political mainstream. It maintains that societies are beset by an imaginary crisis of “free speech” driven by radicals, liberals, and anti-Western beliefs that have silenced “the people’s voice.” This belief appears in its denunciation of political correctness, cancel culture, and identity politics. It underpins its fiery opposition to counter-disinformation activities that are dismissed as interested in suppressing right-wing speech.
Right-wing populism’s position on speech fits the position of social media platforms that have been breeding digital grounds for far-right expression and organizing. Originally, the industry embraced a sanguine view of digital speech as a harbinger of social good and had been reluctant to act as arbiters of speech in their properties. Only when they were under political pressure, such as in the aftermath of the 2016 elections in the United Kingdom and the United States, did some tech corporations step up moderation practices and espouse a flimsy rhetoric of social responsibility as part of their tepid response to sharp criticisms about their role in election disinformation.
Furthermore, platforms such as Gab, Minds, Parler, Truth Social, Telegram, and X are conceived as alternative spaces to mainstream social media, such as Meta’s platforms, as well as the mainstream legacy media. They have fewer regulations and weaker moderation practices than Facebook and Instagram. Their self-styled “alternativeness” mirrors the populist critique of mainstream legacy media, as well as common tropes among populist leaders and activists that they are engaged in a fight against the system. The ideological affinity between far-right populism and Big Tech about “free speech” helps to explain the centrality of toxic language and rhetorical violence in contemporary politics. Digital platforms provide the infrastructure for populist leaders, media allies, and mobs to rail against journalists, political rivals, minorities, critics, and liberal and progressive causes on a regular basis.
Left-wing populism’s approach to free speech draws from radical critiques of media systems, as well as demands of progressive media reform movements that view media oligarchs, concentrated markets, and large corporations as the source of limited popular speech. In Latin America, during the “pink tide” of two decades ago that saw a general shift towards left-wing governments, several administrations espoused that discourse and, in some cases, proposed and implemented media reforms to reform public communication, ranging from the governments of Rafael Correa in Ecuador to Lula de Silva in Brazil, and Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina among others. Key aspects of these reforms included breaking up large media companies through caps on media ownership, expanding state-owned media companies, and promoting legislation to legalize and to publicly fund community and alternative media. Reforms sparked significant controversy and opposition from an array of social forces—from large media corporations to champions of free speech that believed these reforms signaled government overreach on public expression. In some cases, notably under Chavez in Venezuela and Ortega in Nicaragua, that rhetoric was deployed to justify policies that severely limited dissenting speech in the media and the public sphere, including shutting down critical news organizations and persecuting dissident owners, editors, and reporters, many of whom had to go into exile. Left-wing populism abused progressive ideas and goals to justify censoring dissident positions and building media and information monopolies. After decades of censorship and authoritarianism, persistent official bloviation about the need to promote “the people’s voice” deeply misrepresented the situation and served only to promote the interests of the administrations in power.
Populism and media censorship
Notwithstanding its rhetoric about free speech, populism has a record of censorship by silencing and persecuting dissident expression. When in power, populist leaders barely tolerate critical speech and journalism. In their view, any speech is necessarily tied to the perennial battle between “our truth” versus “their lies.” Populist leaders are hostile to information and speech by citizens, journalists, artists, scientists, and experts, that does not fall in lockstep with the regime. They disparage dissident voices with a familiar stream of insults—traitors, poisonous, fake news, enemies, foreign agents, subversives.
Populist governments have deployed various tools to curb freedom of speech and press. Governments and leaders have used defamation laws to chill critical reporting and to drag news organizations into protracted and expensive judicial processes. In countries with a long tradition of media capture and clientelism, such as Hungary and India, they have punished media companies that refuse to swear allegiance to the regime by withholding public funding, stopping tax breaks, imposing hefty fines, and refusing to award government contracts to media businesses. Certain governments, such as in Bolivia, Egypt, Nigeria, Vietnam, have also passed legislation to control dissident information dressed up as noble efforts to prevent “fake news” and protect “national interests.” Some have established official agencies to monitor news and public speech, impose draconian fines, and bring lawsuits to rebellious journalists and activists, like the Orban government’s Media Authority in Hungary. In many cases, the absence of an independent judiciary, which is not uncommon under populism, ensures that oppositional voices do not have fair legal proceedings.
Digital censorship is an unmistakable indication of an authoritarian turn in populist governments. It suggests an attempt to stay in power indefinitely, eviscerate oversight mechanisms, and openly persecute dissident voices in the press and the public sphere. Populism has used three forms of online censorship: legislative, technological, and institutional. Legislative instruments include codes, guidelines, and rules to control digital content, as in the cases of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Turkey’s Justice and Development Party. Technological tactics include digital surveillance, cyberattacks, disinformation tactics, blocking accounts and sites, and internet shutdowns, as shown by current governments in Azerbaijan, Nicaragua, and Uganda. Institutional tactics include setting up government agencies to control online behaviors, spreading digital propaganda, and other goals. In fact, populist-authoritarian governments continue to find inspiration and borrow censorship techniques from each other, as well as from authoritarian regimes, primarily China and Russia. The decision to step up censorship signals the transition of populist governments from illiberalism to anti-liberalism.
From illiberalism to anti-liberalism
However, not every populist government has deployed identical forms of censorship or succeeded in securing a tight control over information ecologies. Although populist leaders may be similarly predisposed to squelch free speech and find inspiration for censoring actions in each other, not all had similar success in putting a stranglehold on public speech and press freedom. Reasons for different scenarios across countries and populist administrations deserve further comparative analysis.
How democracies can successfully confront populist threats to free speech is not obvious. Much has been said on this topic, especially given legitimate concerns about the current ascendancy of populism in the United States and Europe.
Journalists continue to debate how they should cover populism, especially when leaders spread absolute falsehoods and hate speech. The boundaries are not finely defined between covering information of public relevance and amplifying lies and intolerance, or paying attention and mainstreaming extreme, anti-democratic ideas and movements. This situation reflects the paradox of democracies that espouse free speech as a cornerstone value, which in turn, allows anti-democratic expressions that threaten fundamental liberties.
The economics of media industries matters too. Concerned with survival and profit, news companies weigh their position vis-a-vis populist leaders carefully, especially in media systems where state decisions have significant impacts on their businesses. Denouncing populist attacks and censorship may not be a priority when media companies deem other considerations more important and willingly surrender to power.
It is not easy to identify proven tactics for countering populist attacks on speech across different political contexts. Journalism, civic society, and opposition forces should monitor populism’s actions by documenting attacks, denouncing censorship, calling out hypocritical positions, and demanding that governments follow international human rights. They should support independent courts and other institutions that can hold governments accountable. They should strengthen legal and institutional safeguards against government overreach and provide resources to assist dissident officials, journalists, and human rights activists. However, the durability of populist-turned-authoritarian governments in Egypt, Hungary, India, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other countries, is a bleak reminder that those actions are insufficient.
Success ultimately depends on specific national and regional conditions: the resilience of democratic institutions and civic society, the strength of accountability mechanisms, the vigor of the public sphere, and the particularities of media systems and information ecologies. Further comparative attention on actions to confront populist threats to public speech and critical journalism is needed to draw cross-national lessons and inform strategic thinking.
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Silvio Waisbord is a Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is the President of the International Communication Association and the editor of the International Journal of Communication. Among other publications, he is the author of Introduction to Journalism: Thinking Globally (Polity, 2025).
Image Credit: Sander Weeteling, Unsplash Content Liscence, via Unsplash.
