As I've said time and time again, people say "free speech" but what they mean is "consequence free speech".
Freedom of speech, whatever your take on it, is by definition freedom from some consequences. The argument is over which consequences are acceptable.
Free Speech is, in most societies considered to be a concept that applies to the government's ability to censor people's speech. This is well defined in the case of the US 1st amendment: it has zero implication on private entities.
Edit to add:
So in the example case, the US President has been banned from Twitter. People are claiming he's been "censored" by twitter. The government has done nothing to stop him saying whatever the fuck he wants, on national television even.
The hypocrisy on this topic by right wingers is pretty crazy when you think about it: Apparently a baker can refuse to make a cake because he can't sleep at night if two dudes kiss, but a social media platform can't stop someone from posting violence inciting messages on their website?
While this is mostly technically true, unique aspects of the law in the US compared to other countries makes this false for practical purposes.
For example, labor protection laws in other countries protect employees from retaliation for their speech: a company is usually only allowed to fire employees for cause related to their employment. Private speech unrelated to my employer wouldn't suffice in the country I live in. Effectively, this means my employer cannot censor me.
A standard retaliatory consequence for disapproval of speech that people seek in the USA on the other hand is to have a person fired.
If you go on TV and call the CEO a pig fucker, I guarantee you will face some consequences.
If you go on TV and call the President or Prime Minister a pig fucker, you may also face consequences from your employer, but the government (in countries where a concept of free speech applies) can't do shit about you saying that. They may decide to look more closely at your tax filings, or immigration status, or what have you.
The biggest chilling factor to speech in the USA is that your employer will fire you because a mob decides you said something wrong. This cannot happen in the country I live. That I could make my employment grievances public and this would give reason to my employer to terminate me with cause is irrelevant to the fact that my employer cannot fire me for wrongspeak on facebook.
Edit: of course I can still feel social consequences since my colleagues can make it very clear they disagree with me or find my view abominable.
Of note, the current president and the party that nominated him, many of whom are complaining about this current situation, is in favour of "at will" hiring, whereby a person can be fired without reason.
Punishing people for their speech with the intention of suppressing other people from speaking is censorship and the people that do it are would-be censors. That is what the statement of chilling effect means. Instead of harassing librarians until the librarians burn books, the censors nowadays harass employers until they fire the speakers.
Speech can have all sorts of consequences, from losing a friendship to being imprisoned or executed. "Consequences" are a spectrum, and you're simply drawing the line in a different place to other people.
> Free Speech is, in most societies considered to be a concept that applies to the government's ability to censor people's speech.
This is a bold claim without any evidence. Certainly it's not the understanding that I grew up with, but I had the good fortune to have a history teacher who liked JS Mill.
I see open debate as part of a healthy society. I value the ability to hear perspectives other than my own. That's what "freedom of speech" means to me, not the narrow, American legal definition.
> The hypocrisy on this topic by right wingers is pretty crazy when you think about it.
I fully agree, and I'm not interested in emulating their hypocrisy.
What are you talking about? It doesn’t matter who your history teacher is, the entire concept of free speech is about not locking people up for what they say.
That said, here in Australia we actually don’t even have a legally protected right to free speech. We don’t even have a bill of rights. And while I support the right to say anything without being punished by the government, I definitely don’t think that people should be able to broadcast a political message without doing the hard yards of actually, you know, telling the truth and formulating a reasonable argument.
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient."Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
I am confident that my teacher was correct. Mill even shows up in the first article :)
> That said, here in Australia we actually don’t even have a legally protected right to free speech.
Yes, in countries that inherited the UK's common law system it is rarer for rights to be explicitly iterated. This only adds to the absurdity of claiming that "freedom of speech" is a purely legal concept, mind you.
I don't think this open debate you're talking about actually happens much on social media. At least, outside of a few select Subreddits, I've very rarely seen it.
There is no exact immutable universal definition, especially when it comes to edge cases and specifics. It varies across cultures, jurisdictions, and time.
In the Soviet bloc all media were state controlled and even xerox machines and typewriters were tightly controlled. It was non-trivial to even publish something (not to say there weren't consequences).