There is obviously an upside and a downside. The platitude that "freedom isn't free" is something that seems to be lost on critics of the effects of liberty.

I don't think the free speech absolutism present in the US was ever meant to suggest that there isn't such thing as undesirable speech, but rather that the potential for tyranny under regulated speech is a danger well worth avoiding at any cost.

In addition to that, America is a country that works forwards from principles much more often than European nations, which very often work backwards from objectives. To frame the right to free speech in regards to whether or not it is "working out" is not a particularly American frame of reference. The principle that individuals should express themselves as they see fit, and that this is the foundation for a free and open society, is essentially square one.