To me, the major drawback of allowing freedom of speech is
that you have to allow very hateful types of speech that can actually harm your
society. US courts have consistently ruled that even really horrible forms of speech
have to be protected.
The classic case of this is when the
Supreme Court ruled that a group of American Nazis had to be allowed to hold a parade
through a town in Illinois (Skokie) which had a large population of Jewish Holocaust
survivors. This type of speech clearly hurt these people but had to be allowed under
freedom of speech. Similarly, courts have held that "hate speech" cannot really be
banned, even if it is based on race or other things like
that.
So freedom of speech is clearly a two-edged sword.
The negative is that it allows people to say things that hurt others and that can
undermine the cohesion of a society.
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