>> Remember when people only wanted to add 'hate speech' to the exception list (things that 'free speech' supposedly 'never meant')? Now it's expanded to hate speech and 'false or misleading information'.

It depends where you get your definitions from. The European Convention on Human Rights for example only has a couple of 'absolute' rights and free speech is not one. Rights generally need to be balanced against each other (e.g. right to free speech interfering with someone else's right to privacy). Seems sensible. It's a rarity that dealing in absolutes is sensible.