freedom of speech is an illusion

This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately.

We tend to define freedom of speech in a framework of authoritarianism vs. lack of authority. The authoritarian society censors, and the free society lacks the authority to censor. But this deeply wrong. All free speech is backed up by authoritarianism. It's just that some authorities are more lenient than others.

The U.S. has been the most lenient authority in the history of the world, and because of this leniency, we have seen the growth of the strong authoritarianism that is cancel culture. Cancel culture mocks the very idea of free speech. It celebrates the mob. It revels in your fear to speak openly. It plays endless wordgames, especially with violence. It calls its violence speech and your speech, violence. And even silence itself it calls violence.

And this cancel culture is ascending into higher and higher levels of our society. It is on the verge of attaining government power at this moment.

So is free speech just a momentarily delusion? Are we really, in the end, simply arguing about different regimes of authoritarian censorship?