[TFNA]

When OP said we have more free speech than ever, and some here quibble with that, it's not necessarily about coercion under legislation. The early web saw a hell of a lot of racist or angry flamer posts on any site where any reader could comment. A classic example are GNAA posts in nearly every comment thread on Slashdot, HN's forebear.

Today's internet has, for the masses, contracted into a limited number of commercial platforms that have strict moderation for brand-protection reasons. Many platforms have outright removed fondly remembered discussion fora (e.g. IMDB, or Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree) just so they don't have to bear the expense of moderating and ensuring no posts threaten their brand image.

I imagine that most people here will deem the decline in highly toxic troll posts a good thing, but any veteran of the old internet will still notice that the range of speech met in daily net surfing is less than it once was.