> I'm also curious on another aspect, as I don't believe "right to free speech" is meant in any way to imply a lack of liability for damages caused by that spee

> I'm also curious on another aspect, as I don't believe "right to free speech" is meant in any way to imply a lack of liability for damages caused by that speech. It depends what you meant. The law doesn't give carte blanche to say whatever you want, however you want, either. Your example above is what libel and slander laws are about. People make (probably millions) of false claims about companies daily and none of them rise to the level of a credible accusation largely because they're done anonymously. Someone who could actually "convince millions of people" probably has at least SOMETHING damning, and if they don't, the backpressure from everyone else is going to be pretty intense. That's actually _normal_. Desirable. _Some_ speech _does_ require freedom from damage because otherwise the direct effect is the chilling effect. Political speech is specifically one type of such speech. The internet really has forced us to look carefully at what kinds of speech warrant that protection and which don't and we clearly haven't figured it out yet. But certainly giving that power to private companies - and removing it from the hands of the people, the government, the law, the courts, and posterity -- is _definitively not_ the right way to do it.