Freedom of speech is not solely "about the right to criticize ones own government without prosecution". It's fair to discuss it as a concept in itself.
Especially when the past leadership of the very company the article is about has enthused the free speech angle of the company.
But kudos for putting it in a sentence and not lazily breaking out that xkcd comic.
What I was getting at, is that there seems to be this knee-jerk reaction recently where when someone mentions freedom of speech and a private platform in the same sentence, it's like a trope that lets people say "a-ha! this isn't a freedom of speech issue as it's not government, disregard all of this!".
It seems that people treat freedom of speech solely like a legal doctrine, when it's a broad concept that has legal implications in jurisdictions worldwide. I guess it's fair to say that the conversation will always sway towards what legal protections are offered or infringed, but that shouldn't prevent us talking about how private companies and individuals choose to explore it.
I just don't like the idea that private companies have some obligation to be bi-partisan; because that's the way some people are throwing around the term "Freedom of Speech" like it's this ticket to say whatever you want to anyone you want.
To me this is the same as a UX problem. Don't get mad at the user for the way they interpret your interface.
To say that it's a UX problem is to lend credence to the idea that all interpretations are equal. My assertion is that the narrow legal interpretation is a recent phenomenon that's nowhere near as 'equal' as talking about it as a concept.
Even the article on Freedom of Speech on wikipedia states that it's a principle, and then directs the user to other articles on legal implications of freedom of speech by jurisdiction.
Not that wikipedia is an absolute authority, but it acts as a demonstration that the language people generally use when talking about freedom of speech is that it's a principle and a set of ideas.
The fact that there are legal implications in jurisdictions doesn't mean that we have a UX problem with the word, nor does it mean that we need "new word" in order to talk about it from the angle in which it's most commonly approached anyway.