I grew up in Eastern Germany. We had exactly the freedom of speech John Scalzi defends (it was a constitutional right!): only particular kinds of speech would be given an audience, and other kinds of speech could make you lose your career.https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/982267023768997893 …
Yes, when you were deemed to engage in "hatespeech" to destabilize the government or defended Nazi fascism, you could go to prison. But if you merely questioned the preferred narrative, you'd just lose your chance for an academic, media, arts or management position.