And yet, there are clearly potential upsides to abridging free speech. As an example from the Western world, in Germany, hate speech laws are used to forestall the spread of harmful ideologies. I think it's common for people in our corner of the world to believe that abridging speech changes nothing — that people will still believe whatever they want to believe behind closed doors — but I strongly suspect that shaping discourse in a society will gradually change the way people think and behave. Curbing hate speech will make people less hateful; promoting communism will make people behave more communist. (For better or for worse.) Must ethics begin and end with the individual? What if enforcing the structure of society for political/religious/philosophical reasons is collectively deemed more important?

Now, I wouldn't necessarily want to live in a society like that, but it seems to me that "valid first principles" is just a fancier appeal to authority. I'm sure the Chinese would roll their eyes at grand proclamations like this.