America: Land of the free and home of censorship?

A new study by Pew Research shows that American Millennials are far more likely to support the government banning offensive speech about minority groups than other generations.

Of those aged 18-34, 40 percent support censoring offensive speech.

“We asked whether people believe that citizens should be able to make public statements that are offensive to minority groups, or whether the government should be able to prevent people from saying these things. Four-in-ten Millennials say the government should be able to prevent people publicly making statements that are offensive to minority groups, while 58% said such speech is OK.”

Although this statistic might be shocking to some free speech advocates, it really should be taken with a large grain of salt.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans still say “offensive speech” should be allowed. And out of 38 other nations polled, the median was 35 percent.

There’s also a difference in education levels and support for limiting speech. Those with a high school degree or less are 9-percentage-points more likely to support censorship.

You can draw your own conclusions with that last statistic.