[smsm42]

Free speech with complex government-dictated rules is not a free speech, it's government-approved speech. The government can be very tolerant or very strict, but the very fact of control and the very possibility that the government can, if it wanted to, ban the speech it doesn't like, merely based on its content, is the absence of free speech. If I can tell you what to do anytime I want, and prevent you from doing something anytime I want, you are not free - even if I'm not ordering you around right now.

[probably_wrong]

I feel you are missing the same point that the commenter I replied to.

You are applying a US-centric definition of "free", in which "freedom" means roughly "no one can tell me what I should or should't do". Under this definition, you are free because no one is forcing you to do anything.

However! Other countries apply a different definition of "free", meaning roughly "the most vulnerable members of our society cannot be truly free if we let those with the bigger clubs do whatever they want". Under this definition, curtailing the "freedom" of some increases the average "freedom" of society at large, and is therefore more free.

Both definitions have problems, and I feel plenty of discussions speak past each other because two people use the same word for two different things. I understand your point of view, but once it leads(like other commenter says) into "Europe doesn't have free speech" I get suspicious.

[smsm42]

> You are applying a US-centric definition of "free"

There's no other sensible definition of "free". Of course one can say word "free" and mean something having nothing to do with freedom, but that would be just an Orwellian perversion of language, not substantial discussion. Words are means of communicating ideas, and the only idea of freedom of speech that makes sense is one where government can not dictate what can and can not be spoken.

> Other countries apply a different definition of "free"

They are subverting the language in hopes that not talking about censorship would mean citizenship are not aware they they live under a censorious regime. However, whether you talk about it or not, the fact censorship is there and there is substantial and qualitative difference between having and not having government censorship of speech. Saying "we just have different definition of 'free'" is like alcoholic saying "I just have a different definition of 'sober'" - he can have any definition he wants, but that doesn't change the fact he's drunk.

> curtailing the "freedom" of some increases the average "freedom" of society at large, and is therefore more free

It's just sophistry, these word do not signify any real things or events behind them. There's no such thing as "freedom of society at large", not combined of freedoms of the people. Of course, you can talk about it - you can talk about anything, words are malleable - but these words would be just simulacrum, motivated reasoning, juggling words. You can say "freedom is slavery, the true freedom is embracing the state control of everything" - but these words are not defining the idea of freedom, they're just perverting the word for propaganda purposes.

> "Europe doesn't have free speech"

It doesn't, for most countries and virtually any sensible definition of "free speech" that does not hollow the term out to make it mean "whatever the state censorship wants to be spoken, can be spoken".