> The First Amendment is about government suppression of speech
It is exactly that, but that doesn't actually end the real conversation people are trying to have.
Do we support the idea that the govt shouldn't restrict speech, but that we as society should? There are a lot of "chilling" effects seen in history.
On other hand, TOTALLY unrestricted speech is a completely different ball of wax, complete with plenty of hairballs in there. There's the ever-present (yet valid) "what about child porn", but there's also a lot of the issues that are arising in recent years with explicitly false statements and representations designed to influence the average person. Sure, such statements can't survive enough research, but it's easy enough to make it hard to research, to create conventional wisdom that is just wrong. Society where we cannot trust "facts" cannot sustain - it will fracture into separate societies in which trust CAN be held.
And on the gripping hand, we have those that argue for truly unrestricted speech in words, but actually just have confidence that their viewpoint will win out, not by virtue of reason and logic but by virtue of fear and hate.
When I was young, I believed in absolute free speech. I'd quote Voltaire, I'd defend any attempt to allow communication, even that which made me uncomfortable, but I did it for noble reasons. A lot of my more liberal views came about because I supported the efforts of those that made me uncomfortable to express themselves. Nowadays, despite those personal growths, having seen how much we CAN'T handle truly free speech, I'm much more hesitant.
Clearly excessive suppression of speech, be it from the govt or be it from society, is terrible. But now I'm horrified to see that truly restricted speech just empowers demagogues. It ends up not being truly free speech either, as it creates fear of reprisals that can't be proven. It promotes the name of speech while restricting the ideal.
We need to discuss what our true objective is. We can't find the line yet, perhaps we never will, but perhaps we can narrow down the grey area a bit.
But right now, we have the believers in unrestricted speech as a noble ideal, with users of unrestricted speech to restrict ideas hidden among them, arguing with those that are fine with the govt not restricting speech but wanting social protections, with a decently large group that is wondering if keeping the govt out fully and leaving it to social repercussions is perhaps flawed that also joins in.
Saying "the first amendment only restricts the govt" is a fine statement about the current law. It doesn't address anyone's actual concerns though.