They are not free however from consequences, i.e. getting hit in the mouth,

I would say that this is wrong. If you get hit in the mouth for something you say, than it’s not freedom of speech. It’s the law of the strongest.

Example: You wouldn’t hit a UFC fighter for something he said to you on a 1 to 1, however you would beat him if you are 10 against him. This is the law of the strongest.

I don’t believe in absolut free speech. I think that it needs to have limits in it (very well defined limits), and there should be consequences for certain things. And the consequences need to be enforced in a way to counter them, like for example if you say hate crap then you should be forced to contribute to anti-hate orgs.

I register on reddit 17 years ago. Before the great migration from digg. I remember /r/programming being the first sub to reach 100k subscribers.

I got banned for saying in the /r/europe sub that russia banning youtube in russia was a good thing because then we in the west would get less russian propaganda. Got banned for a couple days. Left and never looked back.

/r/programming is dead already since around a decade. All the good discussions moved to hackernews and lobsters.

EDIT: never forget that spez admitted to silently edit user comments that criticized him