A lot of "speech" online isn't real humans voicing their opinions and having civilized discourse.
It's nation states and moneyed interests weaponizing our naïveté, using what are meant to be public squares as means of disseminating propaganda and dividing our societies.
People arguing for unrestricted free speech online are either complicit (e.g. Musk) or naive and being taken advantage of.
Right now I think that free speech, like decentralization, should exist as a safety net. So most people use centralized platforms where bad content (e.g. this) is censored, but the open internet still exists, if only to keep the centralized platforms in line by providing alternatives if they degrade (e.g. if government propaganda gets so bad that it clearly and significantly contradicts people’s beliefs and real-life experiences).
free speech over the mail, phone, in writing, in books, in newspapers, in radio, in television, in shouting on the street
but not on the internet.
it's just irresponsible to allow someone to both reach millions of individuals, and be anonymous. either one, or the other.
Imo this isn't a free speech issue, it's fraud, you can criminalize this type of manipulative false testimony without encroaching on freedom of speech.
I think this is exactly the crux of the free speech issue - should manipulative false testimony be allowed? I'd say no, but others disagree.