In my experience, the more loudly someone shouts about being a crusader for free speech, the more likely they are to actively be attacking others' freedom of speech.
It just seemed like an outright lie and I guess it is.
It's a generic rhetorical flourish, those often come with a bit of hyperbole, aren't universally applicable, etc. That's a normal thing that happens when people have normal conversations, especially if they're a little worked up. It's this cliché, without the iambic pentameter
If you find something someone's said unclear, you're better off just asking instead of smacking them with a wikipedia link and then calling them a liar, though.
You’re arguing it’s a rhetorical misstep and at the same time suggesting it need not be called out. Huge pet peeve of mine is when these little flourishes derail an entire discussion because they aren’t really true but get the sympathetic individuals involved all riled up. If the device isn’t positively contributing it should be identified and dismissed.
It only 'derails' anything if someone decides to pedantidunk on it. That's not conversation. The occasional flight of verbal fancy is, though. 'Calling out' completely mundane things about other people's comments demolishes forums which is why the site docs and zillions of mod comments exhort you not to do it.
In addition, your experience and this statement aren't mutually exclusive. As for evidence: political developments in the EU and America(s), including the US, as well as policy changes by some of the wealthiest, claiming-to-be-freedom-loving platform owners on earth, should provide enough hints not to dismiss this claim outright.
I don't know where you lived, but you are surely familiar with the related trope in regards to Democracy: the more of it in a country's name, the less of a democracy it will be.
You could also simply look at current events to understand the turn of phrase: Elon Musk, proud "free speech absolutist" bans Twitter accounts which criticize him, bans posts with the word "cisgender", and has manipulated the algorithm to prioritize his own posts.
It's certainly true of the Republican party in the US. They proclaim to be defenders of freedom of speech, yet have passed the vast majority of bills censoring books in educational institutions.
Musk is a glaringly obvious example. But also basically the entire GOP fits, as well (they all screamed free speech in response to fact checkers only to do this "anti-woke" silencing)
I'll just pick one quote: "There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society."
Also this in relation to his book: A section of the book favoring exclusion of democrats and homosexuals from society.
This is not the kind of person that is arguing for free speech on its own merits. In fact he's asking for the opposite of free speech. He wants to choose who has the freedom to speak and who doesn't.
