"Free Speech" is a popular outrage-generating topic where just about anyone, anywhere, at anytime can shout loudly about free speech violations because <someone

"Free Speech" is a popular outrage-generating topic where just about anyone, anywhere, at anytime can shout loudly about free speech violations because <someone they like> has said <something they agree with> and is getting negative feedback from <someone they don't like>. A quick reminder that the Berkeley Free Speech Movement was in the 1960s so it's not like college campuses have been some utopia of free expression until now. The reality is that free speech is messy. There are few true absolutists and even fewer, I suspect, who are in vulnerable minority populations. If the majority keeps telling themselves that it's OK to hate the minority, the minority has very little defense. That doesn't mean censorship is A-OK, it just means that the discussion deservers more nuance than most people want to give it. Angry polemics in the media do little to encourage such nuance.