Who decides who gets free speech? You?

There is power in words, and to deny the right of someone else to speak is to deny yourself that right.

And yet, every activist cause has people who will try to silence you, try to discredit you, try to get you fired, all for speaking your opinion.

This recently happened with Sir Tim Hunt, a Nobel Prize winner, who was accused and labelled a misogynist for some out of context words. The social media lynching was nearly immediate. Calls for his retirement, his firing, and all kinds of nasty memes. He was made a pariah... because of an attack article with no basis in truth!

Feminism, LGBT rights, swear words, animal cruelty... the cause is irrelevent. It is free speech that gave all those things their power.
In many cases denying the freedom to express an opposing opinion has helped many causes become successful.
You can't deny free speech simply because someone doesn't agree with you or you don't agree with them.

Free speech does not end where your cause begins, no matter the righteousness of your cause. In fact, the more righteous your cause, the more important it is to allow dissenting opinions.

Increasingly, I see good people telling others they can't say something because they believe they have the moral right to tell others what they are allowed to say.
They don't. Nobody has that right.

You can tell people to shut up, but they must have the right to refuse to be silent.

You have to deny censorship, in order to not be censored.
You have to allow free speech, in order to have free speech.

You can't achieve equality by taking the rights and freedoms of another.

Argue. Debate. Discuss. Defend.
But the instant you censor free speech should be remembered... that is the instant you surrendered your own free speech.