Is there really any such thing as free speech absolutism? Let’s say there are no rules about what you can say on Twitter. Carol tweets about not liking video games. In response 100s of trolls/bots start threatening to rape her. Alice sees the threats and decides not to tweet her own opinions about video games for fear of being on the receiving end of that vitriol. In my opinion, at this point Alice’s freedom of speech is being impeded. You could argue that she’s choosing not to speak because she doesn’t want to deal with the consequences but how is that different than not shouting fire in a theatre because you don’t want to be arrested? Every society decides what speech is acceptable and what isn’t. And then enforces that via social norms, laws and regulations. Personally I’d rather live in a society where people are able to share their opinions without being threatened. I think that society is actually maximizing the flow of information while a society focused on “No rules free speech absolutism” is simply delegating the choice of who is free to speak to mob rule.

TLDR - free speech absolutism sounds simple until you think about who is actually free to speak/which voices are heard on platforms that have no rules