The United States undeniably has freer speech than, say, Canada or the UK. The flip side of that, I guess, is that Canada and the UK have greater freedom from having their feelings hurt.
What an interesting way to put it... United States is on 21th place. I do not know not at all how their rating is done. One thing that could perhaps advance feeling of freedom of choise is the free or almost free education in countries on the top of their list.