"just speech" is just speech too, right?

I seem to be missing the point here. Are you claiming that this term can not be applied categorically in a realistic fashion? I think that's wrong.

All communications are speech in one way, but whether this should be considered equivalent (from a regulatory perspective) to an individual's speech was not apparent to 4 out of 9 Supreme Court justices in the US in 2010 during Citizen's United - and, certainly, this opinion does not bind (or speak for) the entire world's description of speech.