I dunno about that, tricky. Whilst I'm not advocating a clamp-down on free speech or anything of the sort, speech can obviously be very dangerous. See here for historical examples of where it cost lives:
http://freespeechdebate.com/discuss/...gerous-speech/
I'm not making a value statement on censorship with this question - I'm just intrigued by your assertion - but how exactly did censorship kill millions of people?
As P_Stu says, absolute free speech doesn't exist, nor can it in any civil democratic society where the vulnerable and disempowered require protection. In my view, if public regulation of expression is ever deemed required for whatever reason, then that regulatory process ought to be as democratic, transparent and thorough a process as is possible with the proposer subjected to a high-threshold burden of proof as to the necessity of the regulation proposed.
I do admit that there is an interesting paradox at the heart of the free speech debate though: free speech absolutists have no answer to how power is monopolised in the marketplace of ideas, whilst, at the same time, I don't think it's possible for non-absolutists (and I include myself in this bracket) to satisfactorily define who polices what cannot be said in a pure incorruptible way.
Essentially, whilst gross inequality and disparities can exist at both individual and institutional levels in terms of held power – which can be monopolised in the arena of communication – and in the degree of access to channels for expression or in a party's capability to voice themselves or be heard, thus materially diminishing free expression in practice where it is supposedly unstifled in theory, there is no incorruptible way of assigning power to police expression to some sort of benevolent, protective or omniscient overseer – be that a democratically-elected authority or some sort of mechanism to ascertain and effect the will of popular consensus – so as to protect the vulnerable and disempowered, against whom expression by the powerful can be used as a weapon to further suppress and silence.
In fact, assigning power to such an observing body to police expression would effectively be akin to explicitly sanctioning monopolisation. Even if that power is assigned to or by a democratic majority, unless there is absolute unanimity in any "consensus" at all times (which is highly unlikely, if not practically impossible), those who assented hold the monopoly of power, whilst the views of dissenters are dismissed.
Although representative democracy might assist in ensuring a greater number of people are served, in accordance with their declared preference, the inherent problem is still unsolved; a Tocquevillian tyranny by a majority remains possible.
Interestingly, the "free speech" policy of Twitter
has evolved quite radically over time. Twitter’s policy evolution also serves to demonstrate the paradox inherent to the concept of untrammelled free expression. When Twitter was initially established, it was an unregulated forum for communication and exchange, but the company felt that this "libertarian" approach was actually having an inadvertent and unwanted chilling effect on expression. Consequently, to enhance diversity of expression, they introduced rules limiting certain undesired types of expression. Of course, democratic societies do the very same.
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