I absolutely agree that if people hate some minority, they should be able to say it outright. That should carry social stigma, but not a prison sentence, public shaming, or economic ruin. Censoring people isn't effective. If people feel oppressed, they dig in.

I live in one of the wokest parts of the US, and it's also probably the most racist place I've been. You can't have open conversations with people. All the racism and bigotry is just closeted and hidden.

I used to live in a part of the US where a few people were openly racist, and it was a million times better. Most people weren't racist. The ones who were, you could avoid. You could also talk to people about their beliefs, and you know something? People got less racist over time. Open conversations also meant you could explore reasons for achievement gaps and employment gaps, and there was slow and steady progress.

Free society is prerequisite to addressing prejudice, not the other way around.

The only thing that has changed since the classic quote are market dynamics: Platforms can generate ad clicks by lying, polarizing people and promoting hate. That, we ought to address. But we ought to address it without outright cancelling / censoring / banning / ostracizing people. Technically, that's not even hard to do; if people post crap, The Algorithm shouldn't bump it up. From a market perspective, that's impossible without regulation; if Twitter/Facebook/etc. don't promote hate, lies, and polarization, a new platform which does will take over.

No, I want free speech because I actually believe in free speech.