Tim Walz, Minnesota governor and Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, has received a lot of criticism for fudging details of his military service.

That’s definitely worthy of scrutiny, but something else that Walz said in an interview in late 2022 deserves attention, too.

“There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy,” he told MSNBC.

Walz is wrong. We do have a broad guarantee of free speech under the U.S. Constitution, and that includes misinformation and hate speech. Walz probably missed the irony, but his misinformation on free expression is protected speech.

While Walz has a right to spread misleading comments, it’s concerning that a governor and now vice presidential nominee seems confused about what protections we have under our First Amendment.

Unfortunately, Walz is not alone in his views. Many on the left – and some on the right – are turning to the government to regulate (or force, in the case of Florida and Texas laws) speech that some may find offensive.

That is antithetical to one of this country’s most important values.

We can already see how such intolerance is playing out in Europe. The United Kingdom has a notoriously harsh policy against speech, including social media posts, that it finds hateful or racist.

The Crown Prosecution Service recently posted the following warning on X: ‘Think before you post! Content that incites violence or hatred isn’t just harmful – it can be illegal.”

It's not kidding. Police this month arrested a woman over a social media post the government claimed was "inaccurate."

In France, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling and Tesla founder Elon Musk have been named in a criminal complaint from Algerian boxer and recent Olympic gold-medal winner Imane Khelif over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment.”

Their “crime”? Contributing to the discussion over whether it was fair for Khelif to compete against women, after being disqualified from a previous competition because of questions related to Khelif’s sex.........

© USA TODAY