Speech in the US does have some bare protections that helps, but mostly I think the situation in Europe is a lot less stable and the chance of something really popping off there is higher there than the US (though still small), mainly due to the rapidly degrading economic situation in Europe directly related to Europeans shooting themselves in the foot w/r/t Russia and the fact that they are stuck being the junior partner to the US, who is more than happy to screw over Europe for their own benefit.

There is a directly inverse relationship between how much free speech a country has and how destabilizing free speech is to the current order. Sure, the USSR didn’t have as much free speech in the 20s and 30s compared to the US, but there was a crisis situation at the time and a real threat of capitalist restoration from the inside and out. Same with Cuba, maybe speech was restricted after the revolution but when the CIA’s budgeted for toppling your government is larger than your country’s GDP, you gotta make tough choices.

The US respects free speech now because it isn’t a threat to the capitalist order at the moment, not even a bit. Once it does become a threat, all those ideals of “well at least in the US, at least we can criticize our government unlike in CHINA!” will get thrown out the window faster than a Czech Catholic priest does by Protestant reformers.