Obviously (but apparently not so obvious): Explicit threats of physical violence are not freedom of speech.
And that's the line.
A: Not "Free speech": I am going to kill you.
B: "Free Speech": I hope that you die.
A is an explicit threat.
B is merely offensive and an expression of ill will.
Is this speech:
Investigative reporter finds major issue with all major news outlets in a country
Reports it on social media
All news channels ignore it, they instead cover other material and bury it
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People create incendiary whatsapp messages
they are refined and designed to be absorbed immediately by people
People form mobs and kill women and men over 50 times in separate incidents because they believe the targets are "child abductors".
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There are riots.
People start spreading false information
Enemy Nation states intervene and spike the narrative.
The riots turn into a coup.
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The internet is evolving the way people deal with speech itself.
The old lines in the sand are for people who remember them. But the vast majority of people just dont know, dont care.
The truly malicious are using speech to cause harm at scale we have not seen before.
They have a way to now target human systems that could not be harmed, and which have no native protections that can deal with this problem at the rate/scales of today.
Case in point- Fake news and propaganda. And by fake news, the original meaning - IE random people in Romania creating websites which look like news sites to farm clicks and make money.
Those fake news sites are a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech.
Did they lie? Is it an issue if someone lies?
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My point is simply this - the old rules are going to end, pretty damn fucking quick.
Governments are not going to sit around letting a Cambridge Analytica scenario unfold, or a Brexit unfold ever again.
This means that they will ALL look to becoming China lite variants very soon.
Speech = thought = ideas - which are now being put to the test with industrialized propaganda.
You dont need to drop leaflets over enemy lines when you can advertize through facebook. Or send whatsapp messages via sleeper cells.
You dont need to indoctrinate only those people who come to your centers, you can polarize swathes of people - and the Internet and content generators will HELP you, because outrage = engagement.
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The writing is written boldly on the wall.
The gist of your point is that when people hear ideas (that you imply they shouldn't hear) then they can make decisions that you or the government doesn't want.
My point: Let me hear things and I'll make my own decisions using my brain.
Your point?: People are dumb and what they hear should be curated so they can decide "good" things and not "bad" things. I guess you or the govt gets to decide what's good and bad, and which ideas are "weaponized" or not.