Most first world countries do not really have freedom of speech. While the headlines are quite excessive from UK and Australia (for obvious reasons), there are a lot of countries where the simple existence of those laws are never talked about. Denial of the holocaust is illegal in a lot of countries, denial of historic events in a few less, insulting people in a few more.
Getting pulled through the legal system because you showed a middle finger to someone or because you said that some random war crime was not really that bad is a thing that just should not happen. But it is a thing that happened before.
Protests and speech being regulated has the effect of everyone just trying to not get jailed. Even if there are no big headlines about it. And that damage is arguably worse than media coverage, which pulls attention to the issue.
Getting pulled through the legal system because you showed a middle finger to someone or because you said that some random war crime was not really that bad is a thing that just should not happen. But it is a thing that happened before.
Protests and speech being regulated has the effect of everyone just trying to not get jailed. Even if there are no big headlines about it. And that damage is arguably worse than media coverage, which pulls attention to the issue.