From my understanding of history which is probably incomplete, free speech is freedom from government restriction and prosecution, not about availability of information in the private sector. It boils down to the principle that we can't force other people to repeat your views.

Free speech as a concept has definitely been abused by people distributing mis-information. That's more of a modern problem as network effects and technology made mass distribution and co-ordination of mis-information affordable outside of governmental organisations.

In terms of "extreme places", the Internet is pretty free from restrictions already. You can pretty much set up a website with content that's not acceptable on any of the large media platforms.

Yes, that is how and why free speech was established. My argument is that we actually were reacting to the availability of information, but since the government (and outside of the US in some places the Church for whatever religion the state follows) was the only source of the monopoly, we assumed the problem was government. Like if you have somebody running around committing arson and you exile them but don't bother criminalizing arson; you addressed that particular actor but not the underlying problem.

> Free speech as a concept has definitely been abused by people distributing mis-information. That's more of a modern problem as network effects and technology made mass distribution and co-ordination of mis-information affordable outside of governmental organisations.

This is true, however, I would say it needs to be balanced against the situation before, where institutions acted unchecked and it was often impossible to act at all outside of them. I am sympathetic to the argument that misinformation is a problem and I even agree with it, I just think the ways we discuss solving the problem would be worse. It's not enough to solve a problem: We should try to solve it in a productive way. Otherwise we end up with a Pyrrhic victory.

> In terms of "extreme places", the Internet is pretty free from restrictions already. You can pretty much set up a website with content that's not acceptable on any of the large media platforms.

This is why I focused on things like pressure to buy out, DDOSes, immense legal resources being brought to bear, etc. You can set up a website, but if it becomes big enough, people start going after it with things other than just speech, and THAT'S where I draw the line.