The principle that people may express ideas, opinions, and information without prior restraint or punishment by the state — a freedom prized across the political spectrum yet absolute nowhere, since every society forbids some speech, so the enduring argument is never whether speech is free but where the line is drawn and who is allowed to draw it.
Free speech is the freedom everyone claims to love and no one extends all the way. The American who calls it sacred still accepts that you cannot shout a false bomb threat or libel a neighbor. The European who bans Holocaust denial still defends fierce political dissent. Across the world, people on the left and the right each guard the speech they value and eye limits on the speech they fear. So the real fight has never been between those who believe in free speech and those who oppose it. It is over where the line falls, and whose hand is allowed to draw it.