The essay misses an obvious opiate of the masses effect, more specifically: There's less surprise in society when the opposition to the establishment is always

The essay misses an obvious opiate of the masses effect, more specifically: There's less surprise in society when the opposition to the establishment is always spouting off. Perversely this strengthens the establishment during times of rapid change when the masses who are not paying much attention continue to hear the same old stuff, its just now being heard from the establishment instead of the radicals. Note how the 60s radicals are basically the mass media today. There's also a "three minutes hate" feature of blowing off steam where permitting people without any power or influence to talk until they're tired of talking is better for the establishment than bottling them up until furious armed revolution topples the establishment. You want Klansmen to talk, to talk a lot, to talk so much they have no time or energy to lynch, for example. An establishment that pays attention to the speech both in the old days and on social media can trivially figure out a map of the vocal opposition when it comes time to round up the radicals. An establishment that allows free speech is more likely to survive turmoil than the opposite, they simply have more intel on the opfor. Sometimes free speech is funny. The court jester is just simply funny and a world with more laughs is better than one with less.