It _is_ a popularity contest. People must agree with what others are saying, otherwise it has no effect. How you come to change your mind on something might be important here, but trying to elevate some ideal of "progress" without considering the material conditions by which how it happens is extremely handwave-y.
With regards to the first point, Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance) describes how in a supposedly tolerant society, not all viewpoints can be tolerated. For instance, if we use an example from today's society (and let's avoid getting stuck in the weeds about people's motivations for believing what they believe in), supporting white nationalism is clearly good for one group of people and terrible for a very large group of other people. Naturally, those in the second group of people aren't going to be hearing out those in the first and want to work towards stamping it out: one of the actions involved being denying speech.
There is a line to be drawn of course, but erecting a strawman that anyone opposed to free speech is so unprincipled and only the most reasonable would support unfettered free speech is downright disingenuous.
The paradox of tolerance applies to speech too. In a society with free speech not all speech can be tolerated, these that oppose free speech should be censored. It is similar to the idea that the GPL is based on.
> is clearly good for one group of people and terrible for a very large group of other people
With regards to the first point, Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance) describes how in a supposedly tolerant society, not all viewpoints can be tolerated. For instance, if we use an example from today's society (and let's avoid getting stuck in the weeds about people's motivations for believing what they believe in), supporting white nationalism is clearly good for one group of people and terrible for a very large group of other people. Naturally, those in the second group of people aren't going to be hearing out those in the first and want to work towards stamping it out: one of the actions involved being denying speech.
There is a line to be drawn of course, but erecting a strawman that anyone opposed to free speech is so unprincipled and only the most reasonable would support unfettered free speech is downright disingenuous.