[tarakat]

> free speech is meant to protect you from government censorship to ensure the balance of powers

That's the 1st amendment of the US constitution, not "free speech". Since this is a United Nations report, the context is wider than just the US.

> Not everyone deserves a voice, but even if you do we don't have to listen.

Ah the old "we". Only in practice it's not "we" or "I" deciding not to listen, but some other entity deciding on our behalf what we're allowed to hear. Sometimes a government, but most often a multinational corporation. For most of the world, a foreign corporation.

[Comevius]

Corporations only care about their bottom line, if it wouldn't be for the liberal governments and liberal customers for all they care ISIS could use their platforms to advertise. Hollywood is the same, it's just a happy accident that liberals tend to be able to spend more money.

And thank God for that because the conservatives are knee-deep in conspiracy theories, cults and domestic terrorism. If you want a conservative country visit Russia or Iran and try to exercise your free speech. That's coming to the United States too if the Republican Party can help it, their brand of Christian fascism is hardly better. Similarly conservative platforms on the internet are banning every morsel of dissent. For a conservative free speech means my free speech, but they are like that with everything. I'm not even generalizing, the conservative culture in the United States is like that. There is no denying it. It's ugly, but we are responsible for shining a light on it, otherwise we are letting it happen and we have already seen what that looks like.