[lasagnaphil]

You can say anything you want, but only in the guise of anonymity (private). You can choose to reveal yourself, but then you cannot say anything substantially radical (public).

The more important thing that is happening isn't all the fuss about "cancel culture" or "free speech", it's that society is pushing towards the absolute division of the grey area between the public and the private, which is the area where politics actually take place. The real danger is that speech itself, in one mode entirely full of consequences and in another mode devoid of any, will become meaningless because of this distinction. What you say will no longer be related to what you actually do anymore, and speech will just be a floating signifier that no longer has any basis in reality and will lose the ability to change the world. The "freedom of speech" isn't the thing at stake, it's the value of speech itself that's being jeopardized.