Obvious as it may sound, people with authoritarian beliefs hiding behind free speech actually consider it as a weakness akin empathy. It allows losers like them to amplify their reach despite not being in power. They abandon their “free speech absolutist” postures the moment they think they are in power.
I agree with your point in general but free speech is a right that is only a protection from consequences from the government and does not include private coorporations or citizens. If someone start spewing racist remarks in my house, i’ll ask them to leave. The same applies for reddit and other platforms. We can freely move to a place where our speech is allowed. We can’t just force every single platform or every gathering allowing all speech at all times.
I disagree about private corporations. Money is no different from that of religion, violence, or any other form of power. So long as you have a large monopoly on these things, you can greatly influence people to speak…or silence them. Reddit traditionally served as a public square, but now we see selective speech being forced upon everybody: Musk good, Luigi bad.
It is one thing to control speech within your personal dwelling, but it is quite another when you are in charge of a service. Should you be allowed to ban gay folk from buying cake? Or prevent a black man dating a white girl from dining at a classy restaurant?
Violence has many permutations, and forcing everyday norms is by far the most corrosive to personal identity and the social fabric.
I respect your ideal and i think its a good basic value to have, but lets be honest. Reddit has always had content moderation in one way or another but had very high level of tolerance. I remember when every second post on reddit was a huge ascii of pedobear and they had subreddits with legal yet very untasteful pictures of underage girls and bullying fat people had their own subreddit. At some point it became large enough to get large investors that doesn’t want their name next to a barely dressed 14 year old. Then TheDonald and other right wing subs was banned, so it has mostly upheld free speach for what is popular among its users for the longest of time but has never been a free speach platform. Even 4chan today is nowhere near what it used to be, for good reasons i think because i think no sane person would look at it and think, this is free speach in its prime.