The United States has free speech by all but the most extreme definitions. The 1st Amendment is well-tested and supported by the courts. Sometimes, like in Citizens United, to an extremely flexible definition of speech (political campaign donations by corporations.)
We're not talking about forcing people's eyes open to watch content, à la 'Clockwork Orange'.
It's not hard to imagine social media discussion being made a lot more meritocratic, and a lot less censorious.
Vital scientific perspectives on topics that affect literally billions of people ought not be secretly censored for political purposes by non-scientists. That isn't really a huge demand; it's pretty basic freedom and science and health stuff.
The most high profile examples are Assange [0] and Chelsea Manning [1]. Daniel Hale. [2] John Kiriakou*. [3] Sami al-Hajj [4].
Snowden chose exile over torture, and so has been separated from his family for over a decade.
Many people were tortured that didn't even work as journalists; just victims of bad metadata or the wrong name.
Many countries and organizations even consider so-called "standard practice" in American jails to constitute torture. Solitary confinement, sometimes for years. Refusal of basic medical care, nutrition, sanitation. Physical abuse from guards. Unmarked graves behind the jail [5].
Nowadays even environmental lawyers can get put in jail for the crime of winning judgments against fossil fuel companies (Donziger [6]).
* - Wasn't physically tortured, but he did reveal torture and was heavily retaliated against for his trouble.
You said "Let others say the wrong thing on your platform, be it advocating against a narrative or revealing evidence of war crimes, and you can be tortured." The "you" refers to the owner of the platform. Which platform owners got tortured for things others said on their platform?
Julian Assange; did the "war crimes" and "torture" part not give that away?
Chelsea was published on Wikileaks as well.
Daniel Hale was published on The Intercept. They faced no consequences, but they also failed to protect Hale's identity. Hale was then made into something of an example (despite many honors from people praising his bravery).
Al Jazeera (Sami al-Hajj's publisher) have been repeatedly lethally targeted lately (with US made and funded weapons) without much comment from US media.
"Free Speech Zones" are a limit on freedom of assembly, not speech. Less about preventing people from saying an offensive thing outside of the zone & more about keeping the physical mass of a protest from disrupting the flow of traffic or causing a security issue
Riiight. And the fact that this keeps protesters far away from anywhere they might be seen, or be effective, or have any impact at all is just an unintended side effect.
Anyway, you're entitled to yourself and W's interpretation. Me, I go with the ACLU on this one.
