I agree with your major points, but with some modifications: > It means government won't retaliate against you No, that's the meaning of the first amendment.

I agree with your major points, but with some modifications: > It means government won't retaliate against you No, that's the meaning of the first amendment. Free Speech is a principle of tolerance not limited to the government. If society as a whole believes in Free speech, that society as a whole will be more tolerant, both in private and public spaces. Not absolutely tolerant, but more tolerant. The first amendment is the codification into law of this broad principle. The other thing, which is not talked about nearly as much, are the forces opposed to free speech. You have, basically, a tug of war. On the one hand, society believes that "free speech" is a valuable principle. So it does things like having a generous moderation policy on hacker news and laws like the first amendment are passed. But then you have the opposing forces, the ones who say "free speech is nice, but issue X is so important we must punish people who speak against it". That has traditionally been things like advocating violence. Now if the set of such issues fills up all of life, then you will lose free speech. So the real problem is not people exploiting free speech -- the paradox of tolerance is a purely intellectual exercise that almost never manifests in the real world. In the real world you have the principle of intolerance, that more and more aspects of ordinary life are put into the "this is violence" bucket and so used to restrict free speech, up until people claim that speech itself is violence. No society has ever come close enough to valuing free speech so much that the paradox of intolerance could possibly kick in.