It was probably my mistake to link the paper despite it being the best resource I could remember reading, and a mistake on two fronts: firstly since it's aworks

It was probably my mistake to link the paper despite it being the best resource I could remember reading, and a mistake on two fronts: firstly since it's aworkshop paper as you note, an secondly because the more forceful refutation of the speech as separate argument is in the other paper she mentions. That said, this one seemed more relevant to the legal aspects and the issue of free speech rather than only the metaphysical aspects of speech. At the very least, the paper (convincingly in my view) refutes or at least mentions refutations of the main arguments for a specific right to freedom of speech (such as the truth argument or the democracy argument). Regarding the bulwark against authoritarianism, this is already hinted to - being particularly hazardous about policing speech doesn't make so much sense when we already legislate on many other issues which seem to have bigger effects - such as food safety regulation, or the law of murder, or laws against literal genocide. I feel similar to Schauer here, but I'm uncomfortable about taking the plunge and sticking to the unjustified status quo which already seems to produce unfavorable results without much going for it. Even under a system with no free speech law, we'd have no reason to think political speech would necessarily be repressed but good reason to think that various reasoned arguments against hate speech and pornography would be entertained - to me that's a good thing.