[Julie Steiner]

Okay, if the point of the letter is concern that the free exchange of ideas is constricted by the chilling effects of "real life consequences, including being fired, of saying the 'wrong' thing or being on the 'wrong' side of a debate, both on and offline," maybe you will find Elizabeth Picciuto's take more on topic. Snippets (bolding mine):

I believe the signers would agree with me that the most clear-cut free speech violation is when the state uses its power to punish citizens who criticize it. I believe they would also agree that someone’s free speech is violated when they are threatened with physical injury or death for speaking, even if the threat is made by a person who is not in government. Even though such violations are currently occurring, the signers’ focus is elsewhere.

Their primary concern is that social, cultural, and institutional (but not governmental, except perhaps in its role as an employer) pressures will be brought to bear on people simply for expressing their beliefs. Their letter decries that people have been fired and publicly shamed for their words, that certain works of journalism or art have not been published or exhibited, that creators and academics feel constricted in what they can express without retribution.

They write, “The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.”

An intolerant society can sometimes inhibit speech wrongly. But it is absolutely not the equivalent of a repressive government inhibiting speech.

They are missing the free speech forest for a few free speech trees. Government inhibition of speech is wrong, full stop. Threatened and actual violence in retaliation for speech are wrong, full stop. Firings, deplatformings, and social stigma for self-expression are not always wrong. They are wrong on a case-by-case basis.

Social, cultural, and institutional pressures in response to self-expression can absolutely be cruel or unjust, even if I don’t always agree with the signers about which specific cases are the cruel or unjust ones. In at least one case I think they are referencing — “a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study” — I absolutely agree that firing was unjust.

[...]

Such consequences, though, are not antithetical to a marketplace of ideas. They are part of that marketplace. It is a legitimate, even worthy, endeavor to determine whether a specific person who has been fired, socially rejected, or unpublished due to their beliefs was treated unjustly. The letter, though, argues from the position that firing, social rejection, and deplatforming due to expressed beliefs is inherently wrong — that such actions create a “stifling atmosphere,” part of “the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.” If there are some expressed beliefs the writers believe warrant social consequences, they do not say.

[...]

If all speech is worth defending, even the expression of bad ideas, then surely speech that is harshly critical of writers, that demands someone’s firing, that rejects a given work, would be worth defending. Yet the signers are using their cultural and institutional power to convince people to hesitate to express beliefs about who deserves to be fired or socially stigmatized.

[...]

The letter signers evidently think some speech is harmful, because the entire point of their letter is to argue that speech that demands firings or stigmatization brings about an illiberal society. They are not arguing that such speech should be checked by the state — or by anything but their and ideally others’ criticism — but it is still an acknowledgement that some speech has serious consequences, and speakers should therefore hesitate before expressing it.