I'm not trying to say there are no differences, but I find the exaggerations tiresome. When companies or people are muzzled by National Security Letters, whistleblowers jailed and companies bankrupt people with SLAP suits for saying something they don't like, that's somehow not a restriction on free speech in the U.S.

However, when a country doesn't allow you to promote or advocate for war crimes, then it's "only the U.S. has free speech", go figure.

For better or worse, free-speech ideology in the U.S. is very focused on avoiding 1) prior restraint and 2) content/viewpoint discrimination by the government. So a lot of the things you identified tend not to strike people steeped in American legal thinking as free speech problems on the same order as categorically banning certain symbols or messages. I happen to think that this focus is correct, but I could be convinced otherwise. I don't think its at all obvious what the best approach is.

But I agree with your more general point that Americans should be a bit less smug about the superiority of their free-speech rules.

I agree with you (and thanks for the nice discussion) and think it's really a different cultural interpretation. I would say that most Germans would say free speech is a value in general, which should be upheld by the government and for example the work place (and there are laws to protect people there) whereas the U.S. is more focus on the government part (just an observation).

I think both have their historic reasons, place and differences.