Elon Musk enforcing his preferences is totally different from random government officials issuing takedown requests through a designated portal. You may not have been aware of that but now you are. Go and look at the exposé by Matt Taibi.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/27/tw...
Furthermore, the old algorithm was extremely biased in favor of extreme liberals, a fact which was common knowledge to many conservatives and independents, yet no liberal seems to have admitted it or complained about it. In fact they only complain now that they occasionally see things that they don't like, stuff that the old Twitter would have buried or banned.
I'm not saying X is without fault or free of unwarranted censorship, but it is a hell of a lot better than it used to be in that regard. You can easily tell how free it is by how many people get butthurt about things they read on there. You don't need free speech to run with the crowd. You need it to say unpopular or politically controversial things.