I mean that's basically this history of the US in Latin America, but everyone complains anyway.

What? I don't recall ever having heard the US spread democracy in Latin America. The US destabilized democratically elected governments and propped up violent regimes in Latin America to benefit private industry and "combat Communism". The US Army School of the Americas was a finishing school for Latin American dictators and strongmen, as well as other murderers. https://irp.fas.org/crs/soa.htm

Here's part of an English translation of the Russian constitution: http://www.constitution.ru/en/10003000-03.htm

and the Chinese constitution: http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/...

It's not about the constitution.

Just because Russia has a piece of paper that says something, doesn't mean they have free speech.

Same in the US, evidently

Who cares what they say, the Russian constitution can be rewritten in a couple of days when a certain person needs something from it.

The Chinese constitution explicitly says all rights exists only where they don't conflict with what the party wants.

I was looking for something like that, but didn't find it at a glance. Not surprising, I suppose.

> in the rest of the world, we don’t even have free speech.

It exists to varying degrees in various places. It's not absolute in the US, as much as people like to pretend it is - incitement to violence, the old "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" canard, criminal conspiracy, defamation etc etc. There is a line drawn, it's a fuzzy one that people pretend does not exist, but it's there just as it is in other nations.

For more information on how freedom of speech is codified in Europe, for instance, see - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#E...

The "shouting fire in a crowded theater" metaphor was coined by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr in the Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States, in which Holmes and the majority of justices sent a man to prison for distributing flyers protesting the draft in World War I. Anyone today who references the metaphor without sarcasm reveals themselves to be ignorant of the history of the First Amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

It's been a popular metaphor for decades. And your link says (amongst other things) -

"Ultimately, whether it is legal in the United States to falsely shout fire in a theater depends on the circumstances in which it is done and the consequences of doing it. The act of shouting fire when there are no reasonable grounds for believing one exists is not in itself a crime, and nor would it be rendered a crime merely by having been carried out inside a theatre, crowded or otherwise. However, if it causes a stampede and someone is killed as a result, then the act could amount to a crime, such as involuntary manslaughter..."

I was not trying to make the point that it is always illegal to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, that such an act is by itself subject to prohibition, but that it is one of several circumstances in which an act of speech may not be 100% protected by the first amendment in the USA.

I even called it a "canard" because it's something of a cliche and not 100% true as commonly understood.

The point, if anything, is reinforced by this - there is a fuzzy edge to freedom of speech in the USA, even where it is portrayed as absolute.

Another example of illegal speech would be perjury.

They seem to mostly sell that as a package.

Many countries have recognized free speech as a right through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is much broader than the 1st amendment.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human...

But just because governments have recognized the right does not mean that they are complying with this recognition.

This is par for the course though. The 1st amendment was ratified in 1791 and the Alien and Sedition Acts which violated the constitution in the most blatant way were passed 8 years later.

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/alien-and-sedit...

Governments never give freedom. People take it.

Freedom of opinion and expression won't protect hate speech that is protected in the US