Those who believe in nearly unlimited "free speech" have never had to spend their entire lives harassed, threatened, broken-down, or otherwise had any chance of happiness in life destroyed by the words of others. Every one of them should check their privilege, and shove it so far up their fundament that they feel and fear what I do every day.
Speaking personally, we were tortured and terrorised in our own homes for years, though one of the things we enjoyed upon leaving was being able to think out loud, in words of our choosing, not subject to the violent and hypocritical whims of narcissists and psychopaths for thinking the wrong thing out loud.
Trigger Warning: brief, debatably non-graphic description of very unpleasant things that took place
...But to each their own. Having had PTSD for decades, I know it affects different people differently, and what they need to be "Okay" differs wildly. I think freedom is very important, having grown up with a serious lack of it at times. Getting thrown across a room for trying to talk to a family member on a damned telephone might make a person care a little more than average about things censorship as well. But again, to each their own. I don't think it's as one-sided an issue as people make it out to be these days, either way there's a Constitution in the USA and there's the UDHR in so many other countries-- fundamental human rights don't become unimportant when they're uncomfortable for some people.
What I have no patience for is cures that are worse than the disease they falsely promise to cure, but simply take over (control) the treatment of, to their own (purely coincidental) gain. That sort of display of "concern" leading to regular power grabs is just a little too close to home.
But it's extremely difficult to legislate genuine compassion. If it's genuine, making it mandatory only complicates things. I experienced plenty of concern, year after year, much of which was required by law and which changed absolutely nothing and improved absolutely nothing.
Just like quack medicine, it was costly in terms of time and money, though it let people check off list items that something had been "properly addressed" in a useless, one-size-fits-one-size way without actually accomplishing a thing, thus prolonging (for literally years) the very problem it purported to solve.
People are being sold a bill of goods, and they aren't getting any happier-- the more that changes, the more control they demand, but where is all the good this is doing? If anything, a cure or even an improvement should produce a drop in the amount of treatment people need for the effects of the things we have eradicated. I don't think it's done anything of the sort.
I'm sure we agree (to some significant extent at least) on the problem, what I don't understand is-- the more we are forced to implement a (draconian) solution, the more it should help, right? And if it doesn't, can we maybe knock it off? Especially when it violates basic human rights-- but cmon, that part can be a side point for at least a moment.
The real treat is hearing day in and day out how this person's story matters and this person's doesn't-- and how not taking one person seriously is a moral crime but actually hearing out this other person is actually wrong, when terrible things have happened to each, but only one has problems that are currently and politically in fashion. If that's all humanity has left, you can keep it-- it's not very interesting in the big scheme of what we used to think of as progress.
Real progress goes beyond fashionable pandering and requires difficult conversations, many of which are close to getting banned by "polite" societythese days. Exactly how much emotional and psychological and domestic abuse does one person have to endure before which demographic they belong to becomes less important than what Actually Happened? Nobody knows, and too few even care these days.