Yet I've had friends harassed by "free speech advocates" for offering professional criticism of bigoted ideas. It becomes very clear that the people who have managed to plant a flag on "free speech" as a thing that needs defending are simply using it for other means.
Those people are not serious about free speech; they are deeply hostile to it. If they were serious about free speech, they would welcome the criticism.
In my experience, it's not the criticism that free speech advocates complain about (plenty of weak phonies do, to be fair, because they are not secure in their principles or viewpoints). In my experience, free speech advocates complain mostly about the moves of private organizations against individuals' right to free speech. The bans from the social media "public square," (suddenly more important during Covid...) or when someone gets cut off of PayPal for dubious political reasons, these things do matter. They may not be strictly "unconstitutional," or even really illegal, but they are dangerous, and they are against the ideals of a free society.
Yet I've had friends harassed by "free speech advocates" for offering professional criticism of bigoted ideas. It becomes very clear that the people who have managed to plant a flag on "free speech" as a thing that needs defending are simply using it for other means.