"Free speech" is a loaded term. In the US, you can't just say whatever you want without consequence, which is what lots of people seem to think "free speech" means.
Neither slander nor obscenity are protected by the First Amendment. Same goes for so-called "fighting words." Incitement of lawlessness is not protected. Incitement of suicide will likely be tested soon, but a lower court has ruled it is not protected.
And that's just a fraction of the types of speech not protected by the US Constitution.
In the UK I'm free to say this in public, following a magistrate court's decision in a public obscenity case against the Sex Pistols, caused by their album, "Never mind the bollocks (...)" that the word, bollocks, means "nonsense", not "testicles"; and is, therefore, not an obscenity.
And that is how free speech is protected, in the UK, and other modern democracies.
Neither slander nor obscenity are protected by the First Amendment. Same goes for so-called "fighting words." Incitement of lawlessness is not protected. Incitement of suicide will likely be tested soon, but a lower court has ruled it is not protected.
And that's just a fraction of the types of speech not protected by the US Constitution.