Russia is blazing the way in demonstrating specifically how purportedly anti-extremist censorship laws can be applied in practice, though. To give one example, it has a law against "actions that are directed at fomenting hatred or enmity against, or humiliating the dignity of, a person or a group of people, on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, language, origin, religion, or membership in some social group". Civil infraction the first time around, and you can go to prison for several years for a repeat offence.
Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well, turns out that police can be a social group. So can government employees. And members of parliament. Of course, back when they passed that law, some civil libertarians did point out the vagueness. But it went exactly as it usually does in any Western country - the politicians were pinky swearing that this is all about Nazis and radical Islamists and other nasty people like that who deserve it, and obviously it wouldn't be used for anything inappropriate; but, you see, if it's too narrow, then the bad guys can find ways around it, so it has to allow for some flexibility.
For most Westerners, the immediate reaction to this is, "it can never happen here" - not the laws, since many countries have similar, but the part where they get misused. We'd never tolerate it, the argument goes. But we are tolerating it. France also has exemplary hate speech laws - and under them, wearing a t-shirt that advocates a boycott of Israel is a hate crime, a felony even, and people are actually getting arrested, charged and convicted under it. The law in question is 15 years old now, and it's far from the only one like that in Europe - just the most abused one so far.
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-la...