@Martin Re: What, exactly, is 'free speech'
As a Yank... lets get into the basics.
Free speech is the 1st Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So you have in the US what is considered protected speech. Note that not all speech is protected. (e.g. Yelling fire in a crowded theater)
You are correct that there are libel laws which hold the speaker responsible for what is said or posted. However there's a balance to the freedom to say what they want and the potential repercussions from said speech.
However Section 230 exempted these sites from those laws saying that they shouldn't be held liable for posts made on their sites because they are not the originator of the speech since they do not curate their content and are merely a platform.
Now we can see that's not true. These site curate their content.
There's more to this... and the simple solution to exempt the protections from FB, Twitter, Google, etc .. because they do curate their site's content... but that won't happen. Congress will end up removing Section 230 altogether which incidentally helps the same offending sites.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
