Having less freedom of speech is a pretty obvious idea, it means that there are fewer things that you are allowed to say or publish without retribution.
>what if that retribution comes in the form of speech, which is likely? It sounds like...
Don't read in what wasn't written - by retribution I meant in real terms like pain, danger, or economic ostracism.
>complete freedom from the consequences of your actions.
Someone in the pro-free-speech camp would not consider getting yelled at on Twitter to be a truly significant consequence. If they did, they would have to be open to the idea in having limits on extrajudicial twitter-flogging.
by retribution I meant in real terms like pain, danger, or economic ostracism.
I'm not sure what you mean by economic ostracism, but people are protected from having pain inflicted on them or being put into danger, as there are already explicit laws against assault and reckless endangerment.
In a hypothetical country with poor freedom of speech, the police would come get you for criticizing the government or revealing embarrassing secrets. Alternatively, the police might turn a blind eye to hate group's violence against civil rights activists. There are many ways for it to happen. An example of "economic ostracism" would be every banker in the town refusing to do business with you after you criticized banking regulation for being overly lax.
Ostracism, economic of otherwise, is just people exercising their freedom of association and choosing not to associate with you. Which they are free to do for any reason or no reason—you do not have a right to receive services from someone else against their will, and freedom of speech doesn't change that fact. This is categorically different from having harm inflicted on you (capital punishment, imprisonment, loss of property, etc.) on the basis of what you said.
This is why it is legal, not necessarily why we must describe is as a state of freedom for the speaker. Suppose you work for the govt and get fired for what you say. No one inflicted harm on you there. The important categorical difference is govt retribution versus individuals doing it.
A society where people act outside the government to dissuade speech they don't like (even if they operate within the law) certainly feels less free that one which is more accepting.
