Thousands of years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really only been put into a constitution a smigeon more than 200 years ago.

But that's besides the point. Freedom of speech has always been an imperfect principle. At anytime we are and have been censored in any society. In the west we probably have fewer censorships, but still we censor child porn, financial cheating / insider trading as well as "hate speech". And that is good. Other societies such as china do exactly the same just that the goal post has shifted a little more.

The point is this: freedom of speech is a relative term and has changed between societies and in time. It's never been free in absolute terms.

It's also recently not revealed the truth and made us less just, which is what it's only real purpose is.

The goalpost needs changing to make it achieve that again.