Is it hypocritical for free speech advocates to moderate comments on their own site?

A few examples of negative consequences, defended on free speech grounds in the US, which would be regulated, prohibited or prosecuted in many other countries:

Citizen’s United / US campaign finance and advertising in general: among the reasons why Australian elections are so much cheaper and faster than in the US is that we regulate time and manner of political advertising, limit political donations and prosecute conflict-of-interest corruption.

Revenge porn: this sort of violation of privacy and harassment is slam-dunk illegal in most places.

Crush videos: infamously defended by a USSC decision.

Fred Phelps: he can believe whatever shit he wants, but his graveyard antics would’ve sent him to prison almost anywhere except the USA.

Stormfront: most places have no problem with restricting speech that calls for the murder of fellow citizens. See Rwanda for the eventual consequences of not doing so.

The KKK: ditto.

Father Coughlin: I’m sensing a theme here…

Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising: American medical commercialism is weird. Most places recognise that television marketing is not an appropriate forum for medical decision making.

Quackery in general: Not a victimless crime. Ditto “psychic” fraud.

Unregulated marketing fraud: Regulation against misleading and harmful advertising (e.g. Oz-style tobacco packaging regulation) is much weaker in the USA.

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That’s off the top of my head. When applied with context-blind literalism, the US first amendment appears to be an example of “for every complicated problem, there is an answer that is simple, elegant and wrong”.

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