I have a suggestion to keep these conversations from spiraling into pedantry: let's stop using the phrase "free speech" when referring to these companies (I'm going to use it a few more times here though, for illustration), and instead be descriptive and refer to "a group of people having their ideas and voices silenced at scale." Whether we agree with the people being silenced or not, that's what this is really about, right?
We don't need names to know what something is. A young scientist might think an elderly aboriginal person foolish because the elder has never heard of a "star", but that doesn't mean the elder hasn't seen the sun rise every day of their life.
My point is that we should not be discounting opinions because someone used the wrong word. We're smart enough to read between the lines and see the crux of what is bothering someone. Free speech, as an ideal, doesn't have to refer to any law, but to avoid spiraling into pedantry, I would suggest that we all be more descriptive during the course of these conversations.
We don't need names to know what something is. A young scientist might think an elderly aboriginal person foolish because the elder has never heard of a "star", but that doesn't mean the elder hasn't seen the sun rise every day of their life.
My point is that we should not be discounting opinions because someone used the wrong word. We're smart enough to read between the lines and see the crux of what is bothering someone. Free speech, as an ideal, doesn't have to refer to any law, but to avoid spiraling into pedantry, I would suggest that we all be more descriptive during the course of these conversations.