I experience Lemmy as a reflection of many of the problems in the world; there seems to be little effort to understand and respect different viewpoints. Instead of being curious about opinions one disagrees with, the community often feels almost aggressive. People end up in their own trenches. What about trying to be more open and curious about our differences instead?
Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with…
Not to mention, “freedom of speech” only applies to laws congress may make (even if they regularly ignore that). There is no “freedom of speech” law across the land that is some god-given right. Admins and mods are free to run their instances and communities as they wish; if you don’t like how they do it then you can leave. “Freeze peach” is always used by conservative snowflakes to cry about having their opinions called reprehensible.
Just because that’s what the USA first amendment regulates, it does not mean that is what the concept itself is.