> Speech is the most important non-violent right that we have

Really? More important than the right to vote? Than the right not to be arbitrarily detained? Than the right to a fair trial?

I strongly believe in the importance of free speech when it comes to true statements or criticism of the government. But the idea that the right to spread deliberately false information or directly incite violence is not just a fundamental right, but the most important fundamental right? Honestly, I just don’t find the argument very compelling

Yes, the right to free speech is more important than those rights because it is what lets you say that the other rights have been violated. If you have the right to vote, but not the right to say that you were prevented from voting, you don't actually have the right to vote.

That doesn't explain why absolute free speech is necessary. If you are allowed expose violations of your voting rights, but not allowed to engage in hate speech... you still have the right to vote?

But part of it is also the broader context: There's a contingent on the far-right who complain about their speed being limited as they actively campaign for stripping minorities of civil rights. I interpret the post as indirectly suggesting that siding with those minority groups means you are less committed to civil rights (because the right-wing folks are the primary ones concerned about speech restrictions, while minorities are concerned about everything). Which quite frankly is an absurd conclusion

"hate speech" is whatever the current political climate deems to be unacceptable speech. Today it's hateful to be against homosexuality, tomorrow it's hateful to be against any other approved policy from your favorite political party.

I disagree. Never in my life has the best solution to anything been the extreme, instead it's always been balanced and nuanced solution that have ended being more optimal. I've observed this in science, physics, engineering, medicine, culinary, inter-social relations, business, in everything.

Based just on that, I already get a red flag when someone says that an extreme free speech position, such as free speech absolutists, is the best solution to have a liberal society with civil liberties.

In my experience, balanced and nuanced is always better, and you must always have provisions to handle special cases, there will always be special cases.

Free speech is very important, like you said, beyond violence, how else you going to influence and assert any improvement or changes to defend, retain or ask for more liberties?

But speech can remain civil and respectful, it doesn't have to include slander, or threats to a person, insults, ridicule, raised voices, talking over people, etc.

And then you have the conflict with other liberties. Yes governement shouldn't be able to restrict anyone's speech, no matter what. But between themselves, citizens should be allowed recourse to slander for example. They should have ways to protect their reputation when it is being harmed by someone intending to harm it through misinformation, lies, and false accusations, and that would require the government to intervene and uphold someone's right to their reputation.

Also, we should be allowed to create communities with code of conducts that include speech behavior. If you come to my house and start bad-mouthing my daughter, insulting her, and I kick you out, you shouldn't be able to sue me for violating your free speech rights. I should be allowed to control the code of conduct of others in my own home. Similarly on my website, in my comment section, or if I am a company running a social community space I too should be allowed to do so in order to protect my business. Robo-calls, spammers, calling me or leaving spam in my email, website, I should be allowed to block them, or have some service that auto-censors them, it shouldn't be that their creator can prevent me from blocking them because it infringes on their creator's right to free speech. Same for bot accounts and all that. So clearly I feel there needs to be special provisions for exceptions to the right to free speech, and when exactly it applies, to whom, about what, and how the speech itself is conducted and what the speech is actually saying, is it false accusations, slander, threats, spam, etc.