IMO it's naive to think there is going to be some large public space where reasonable and thoughtful free speech occurs. In my experience running public forums

IMO it's naive to think there is going to be some large public space where reasonable and thoughtful free speech occurs. In my experience running public forums on an e-commerce site, you can have this for small groups of people, but as it gets larger, there are inevitably a few troublemakers that will turn it into a cesspool. You can't moderate them without violating their "free speech" rights, and once they are there, the reasonable, thoughtful people will leave. I think it's a much better idea for individuals to have their own blogs, with comments enabled if they choose, and let them moderate these as they see fit.