If there's one thing that the extreme far leftist social justice ideology loves, it's wordplay. It's taking existing words and changing their meaning (while retaining their positive or negative connotations they had prior to the redefinition). Perhaps the most prominent and archetypal example of this is the redefinition of the word "racism". In fact, they have redefined it several times, every time making it more and more the exact opposite of what it meant originally. (Indeed, we have reached a point, since a few years now, where not distinguishing people by race, not discriminating against people based on their race, and treating people equally regardless of their race, is "racism". Not even kidding. 10 years ago this idea would have been absolutely laughable.)
There are many other examples (such as the word "democracy", which the far left has been avidly redefining), but one I would like to pay especial attention to is "free speech".
The far-leftist social justice ideology is an ideology of bigotry and hatred, and there are thousands and thousands of things that they absolutely hate and detest. One of the top-tier concepts that they absolutely loathe and want to destroy is the concept of "free speech".
After all, free speech is highly problematic: It allows the "wrong" people to express the "wrong" opinions, freely and without consequence, for anybody to hear who is willing to listen. Free speech allows the dissemination of "dangerous" opinions and ideas. Opinions and ideas that go contrary to and are critical of far-leftist social justice ideology. For this reason "free speech" is a dangerous concept that needs to be eradicated from society in order for social justice to gain absolute power.
The direct approach would be, of course, to try to ban free speech. To remove it from the list of basic constitutional rights. However, at this particular moment, they are not yet powerful enough to legislate this and actually remove it from constitutions, laws and human rights declarations.
So what's the next best thing while we wait for them to gain enough power? The same tactic that they have been using so many times with so many other words and terms: Change the meaning. Redefine it.
More particularly, redefine it to mean the exact opposite of what it originally meant (just like what they did with the word "racism").
This process of redefinition, of the reversal of its meaning, has already been happening in a relatively slow and steady manner, all across the western world, and has been happening for several years now.
The easiest way to do this is to claim that to "protect free speech" they need to restrict it. After all, "protecting (some positive thing)" has become one of the most beloved buzzwords and tactics of the far left in later years (such as "protecting democracy").
We have already seen many times hints of this idea. The idea is that if the "wrong" people, the "fascists", the "nazis", the "far right", is allowed to freely speak, this undermines freedom of speech because it makes most other people afraid of speaking. Criticism of social justice ideas cannot be freely allowed because it "silences marginalized voices", it makes "oppressed" people too afraid to speak up.
Thus, to "protect freedom of speech" we must restrict it. We must silence, ban, censor and remove from public view all "harmful" and "wrong" opinions. Those ideas are "a threat to free speech". This, of course, means any opinions that are critical of, or don't line up with, the far-leftist social justice ideology. How convenient.
You don't yet hear much the expressions "protecting freedom of speech" or "a threat to free speech" from the far left (eg. the media, or social justice academics and bloggers), used to justify censorship and discrimination, but I would bet you'll start hearing those expressions being used more and more in the near future from them.
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