Public humiliation is free speech, true. Actively attempting to interfere with someone’s business relationships due to their speech is a civil tort, sending threatening messages to someone due to their speech is a crime, swatting is an even bigger crime, stalking is a crime, conspiring with people in a Discord to do most of this stuff is a felony thanks to laws regarding conspiracy.

There’s a certain motte-and-bailey that goes on with the “speech has consequences” crowd, where the frontline people just say their people are only engaging in legal counterspeech, while all this horrible stuff goes on behind the scenes. And then they laugh about the horrible stuff when it happens and say things like “FAFO.”

I almost never see would-be cancellers (regardless of political affiliation) call out people on their side for encouraging or engaging in blatantly illegal conduct in order to “own” their opponents. Often they hang out in the same group chats!