It seems that what you fear is being "attack[ed] publicly." If that's the case, what you fear is that others will express themselves in a way that makes you uncomfortable. Wouldn't the cause of free speech be better advanced by defending to the death their right to express themselves, rather than by casting that expression as the death knell of modern society? If your side were to "win" this culture war, a whole lot of speech would be suppressed by new social norms. Free speech for me but not for thee.
If you walk into a bar and start mouthing off, there's a decent chance you'll get punched in the face. This is bad and a crime, but I never hear anyone talk about how it's a sign of the deterioration of free speech norms. Why is that?
This is what I mean by catastrophizing. In response to speech that makes you uncomfortable you have chosen to give up on self-expression on controversial topics (except this one apparently) and martyr yourself. But no one is forcing you to do that. The arena of public discourse is still open to all comers.
To the extent that I see any coherent position in the free-speech-substack cinematic universe, it's rather anodyne: "people should be nicer to each other." True enough as far as it goes.