Free Speech

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^ He also had his bank account closed for having certain political views, more recently, and when he kicked up a fuss about on his GB News platform, the CEO of Natwest, the person ultimately responsible for his account closing, was booted out of the organisation.

But if he didn't have the clout he did in news media, he'd have had his account closed without being able to challenge it, like thousands of others this happens to.

It should be noted that the U.S. is an outlier in this regard. Most western democracies do have hate speech laws.

It should be noted that even in America one should be protected from criminal consequences for voicing hate or any other speech just like one should be protected from becoming a victim of crime committed for any reason. Protecting you from crime is the government's job. Too often there are double standards in how much effort the government puts in from protecting you based on how much certain opinions offends them. For the most part I am not talking about violent crimes like murder but harassment and less violent crimes such as punching someone and vandilizing.

Beyond the legalities is a broader societal question of what should be ostracized, how much, and for how long? One point of view is that if “hate speech” is not ostracized it influences people causing hate to spread. The other way of looking at it is that suppressing hate causes it to quietly fester until it bursts out in a bad way. Suppressed hate is unexposed hate. And then there is opinion widely viewed as dangerous and thus suppressed that turns out to correct preventing or delaying benefits to society.

What should be suppressed is both a tricky question and not a one size fits all question. One cannot predict what dangerous opinion is best left alone to remain limited to the preverbal person living in their parents basement and what former outlier idea should have been dealt with. Adding to the confusion is that sometimes suppression results in a martyrdom effect.

I tend to err on the side of less suppression is better.

FREE Speech.. is NOT ..! It is a illusion designed to create delusion. IMHO . ( consequences) many many instances
of people being removed from public meetings, even before they have gotten a chance to speak.
Delusion : the idea , the concept of Free Speech ,maybe put forth by Governments to improve their image.IMHO
Personally witnessed this at , at least one Smaller City counsel, meeting . Using State sponsored Police , by a Police Capt.
But watching public demonstrations can give a person a different impression and support the impression the Government prefers ...Until it comes down to legal interactions . Police enforcing lack of Free speech and subsequent prosecuetors that have jailed protestors . Will fabricate charges that do not relate to the actual free speech style demostration. In order to discourage further involvement in demostrations . Creating such financial and personal hardships on the person arrested .