"How about we just go back to not using one big central social communication platform and go back to the spirit of using separate independently owned forums, chatrooms and websites for our little niches and communities to prevent this issue"
Regardless of what the issue is how would being on a smaller forum prevent this?
The idea of chasing after evil ideas is flawed from the outset.
It's not new, either, which is why this very long hacker news thread bothers me. I usually like to wade on on these topics more extensively, but here the entirety of the population is applauding free speech being a shitty idea, without any historical conversation.
Oh and it's incredibly US centric. Freedom of speech is a principle that was discussed in the Enlightenment and beyond, and fought for (first against religious authorities in ancient times, then against religious authorities in the 20th century). It happens to exist in the 1st amendment as a government limitation, but as a principle and a moral it is well beyond that.
a) new entrants can't exist ( Parler, Truth.. whatever ) b) the rules are so generic that they ensure given platform can ban whatever
And this is why people clamor for simple free speech slogan.
If this is how we understand it, then we do need free speech.
Unfortunately, I doubt that we can put the cat back in the bag.
Everyone thinking "we need free speech on Twitter" has lost the plot, and, as you mentioned, the revealed preference of people who claim they want free speech is actually toward heavier moderation (but moderation they like).
Most of them go on Twitter for one kind of content, and on Parler or "Truth" Social for another kind, and they don't really want the streams to cross. We used to have this in the 90's and early 2000's. The question is how to get it back.