The problem with it is that you only have free speech until someone higher in the power structure decides whatever you're saying is insulting. Free speech in the US is actually limited in some ways, for example speech is only protected from abridgement by the government, something that's becoming more relevant by the day as social media platforms gain more and more sway over the public discourse.

I'm not aware of a single issue which has been effectively banned from public discourse due to being moderated on social media, nor any person who has been unable to continue public life or communication, for the same reason. Even "vaccine critical" discourse during COVID was rampant during the time when, supposedly, social media platforms erased it completely.

The "sway" that social media platforms have over public discourse is often vastly overstated for political ends, certainly compared to that of governments.

And the real problem is, if you consider the ability of social media platforms to moderate content to be harmful, the only solution is to have government limit the free speech of those platforms and those who participate on them by coercing them into publishing speech they don't want to, which cedes power to a potentially even worse entity. People are so terrified of the power social media has now - as an extension of the general social panic against "the left" - that they're willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Facebook can ban me from their platform but at least they can't send goons to my house and ban me from life.

This.

They are very few (read: "none as far as I know it") people jailed in the EU for having said that vaccines were "dangerous / ineffective / a plot by the governement to inject 5G chip / insert theory here" - neither for writing it on social media, nor for telling it on broadcast radio / TV.

However, and sorry for the cliché, there seems to be some places where you can get in jail for calling a "special operation" a cat.

Well, someone "higher in the power structure" has to decides what your saying is insulting _and_ put in place the means to actually punish you for that.

Speech, like pretty much every other freedom, is restricted by laws. And, we do have a pretty decent level of separation of powers as far as "putting people in jail" is concerned; so, to put you in jail for a long time, the "insult" has to be recognized by lawmaker, judges and governement.

(The situation is more troublesome for "putting you in jail for a few hours after a demonstration". But the forerunner for "repression" on this front at the moment in Europe, is, ironically enough... the UK [1]. So, good for them that they're not under "EU tyranny" anymore, I guess ?)

Europe has a troubled history on this front (we had certain issues for letting certain people "freely" explain why certain religious minorities had to be "dealt" with). So some countries passed some laws barring some discourse about race, slaverly, discrimination, etc... that would be protected by free speech laws in other countries.

(And, contrary to one pervasive piece of "free speech", there is not yet a "global goverment" enacting the same laws everywhere. Go figure.)

As for free speech on social media platform, that's a different topic. But my very personnal opinion to think that "insulting people while protected by putting the blame on twitter" is not a fundamental right. Open a blog, become a "publisher" under "freedom of the press" laws dating back to the late 1800s. Then, bear the consequences of your speech. (Neither is twitter's right to earn money from publishing insults while claiming they're not a publisher.) But, just my 2c, and I agree to disagree.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/08/labour-urge...

I believed this as well. Then came covid-19, and I had to learn that power corrupts people, same for those on the left as well as those on the right. Since then, I basically lost all believe in the narrative of democracy that I have been fed with my entire life. Its all a lie.

Emergencies and wars are bad for démocraties. The question is how fast and bad you come out of them.

Societies stood, jails are not flooded with opponents, I get the weekly interview of an antivax/covidsceptic/whatever on the radio because they're on the "right" political team, the governments are paying the political prices of their handling in the ballot boxes.

This is not perfect and never was meant to. Sorry if you were told otherwise.

Tides turn. People you agree with will be in the ruling majority some day. This will hurt even more ;)

Thanks for this compassionate reply. Its about time that we start understanding eachother even if we are in disagreement. It is subtle, but it really makes a difference. Let me just reply to your last point:

< People you agree with will be in the ruling majority some day. This will hurt even more ;)

In fact, I am psat that, because this was exactly what happened to me. We had a coalition between center-right and the green party. Even the socialists turned up and everyone seemed to unite into a coalition to divide the people. I am lacking the eloquence in english to explain myself fully, but the lesson I got, sadly, was that you really can not trust anyone to not corrupt and try to control you.

"but the lesson I got, sadly, was that you really can not trust anyone to not corrupt and try to control you. "

Even if this would be absolutely true, it would not undermine democracy. It just would proof the need to have build in mechanisms to keep the people in power in check. Exactly because you cannot trust people 100%. And mechanisms like this exist and are in place, but I agree, they should be improved.

This is what I believed as well, until I saw how one of the basic democratic rights, the right to demonstrate, was undermined in my country from the first day on. The main argument wasn't even spreading the virus, while that was aso mentioned as an aside. The main argument was "all of the demonstrators are right-wing nuts, these demonstrations must be condemned". I was schocked, because I knew this wasn't true at all. This is when I reaized, all the safety mechanisms we have been taught about democracy are a shim which can easily be disabled at the time of "need" from a autocratic regime.

I'm sorry that you felt silenced during demonstration. I hope you got other chances to get your voice heared afterwards (and if your voice was heard but just happened to be in a minority... Not much more to say than 'this too, shall pass'.)

As an aside, to be honest, I've always been undecided about demonstrations.

I dread for the day were they will be systematically forbidden or brutally repressed. And then again, I live in a country that is in a perpetual state of strike and demonstrations, but we're it's cool and fashionable not to vote, because, "it doesn't change anything".

I love the creativity that comes in cardboard slogans. (I want to meet the person who invented "16-64 : it's a beer, to a career" during this pension reform season.) And yet, I always feel uncomfortable about being in the same crowd as other, much less original and much more simplistic slogans.(sorry, but I _saw_ the posters explaining that every single person wearing a mask or getting a jab was a fascist decrebrated sheep. Or that COVID was just a trick from the <insert your favorite scapegoat here>. I would not have like walking behind this, sorry.)

Also, at how many people does a demonstration starts to represent "the will of the people" ? It seems like any cause can summon 500.000 people in the streets in May, provided the weather is good. 1 million people is almost a "revolution".

And yet, 1.000.000 people gets you less than 5% of any election with a decent turnout. Should that matter ?

Also, to be clear : I'm frailed or not particularly brave. The idea that "just because you're a big mob, and you can threaten to break stuff, you're right" is frightening.

I supposed I would be even more frightened in an "actual" dictatorship. So, plenty of cognitive dissonance to deal with, hey ?

Maybe I'm just enjoying the privileged position of a country where we get elections that are not entirely tricked (source : my perversion is tallying votes on Sunday nights. Cool kids don't do that, but they don't vote either - They get ready for the next demonstration.)

I hope that, if we ever loose that, I'll get the courage to demonstrate.