Do you mean "free from public consequences"?

For example, if I say something controversial to my SO at home it shouldn't cause me to get fired because Alexa overheard and its recording leaked?

I suspect there is a lot of nuance to both sides here. Like if the president of the US tells racist jokes to their lover in private, then public consequences after a tell-all book may be in order. (By public I mean people may chose to vote them out.)

Can we stop with this stupidity please?

What if yer dog gets mad at you yelling at the television and bites you, that was a consequence, right? so ha! I've totally proven how silly you are for thinking that you should be able to make a statement to yourself about muhammed without actors in the middle east calling for your death!

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When people talk about consequences for saying stupid things, this is exactly what they're talking about. Embarrassment for saying completely assinine things, not losing your ability to support yourself because you made a stupid joke when you were 14.

If you can't understand the difference between the two, that's a you problem.

You can apologize for making a stupid joke when you were 14, and you won't lose the ability to support yourself. People like Brendan Eich doubled down on being assholes, saying essentially that they would donate to campaigns to retroactively make gay marriage illegal again. Now he's a crypto grifter.

I've seen a story of a man losing his business because his daughter made a stupid joke.

You can bury your head in the sand and pretend this sort of damage isn't happening regularly, but the rest of us choose not to.

If you've seen it, you can point us to it instead of claiming the rest of us are burying our heads in the sand.

I raised my head up high and actively looked for the story by Googling "lost business daughter joke" and came up empty.

I said YOU are burying your head in the sand, I made no comment about others.

Stand on your own two feet.

I get that you said that. Did you get that I specifically searched for this case and came up empty? I am not intentionally hiding from this story. If it exists, show me.

Is this the search version of "pics or it didn't happen"?

Umm no. Unless you’re in a looked soundproof room talking to yourself speech is a social activity and no one gets to dictate how others interpret and react to your speech.

Note that this mindset leads to what happened under Mao with children ratting out parents etc.

Should it? If I say something to someone in private that causes them to think I'm a raging asshole, should they not be free to share it with others, and should that not have consequences for me?

Under the SS kids would eat out their parents. Remember that you have to assume true speech could also be punished if you normalize the behavior.

A public street or a tv interview isn't in privste.

Depends on how private. Speech is communication, which almost always necessitates more than one person, and the other people are perfectly within their own rights to provide some consequences to the speech they hear in private.

I disagree, because this mindset leads to what happened under Mao where anything against the party was punishable and family members would turn you in.

What? No. That's the government acting in response to speech, not other people expressing themselves.

Your argument forgets that it's also free speech to react to something objectionable. If the government forced me to do business with you without my consent, that would be compelled association, which is more similar to how Mao's government behaved in the 50s.