The IRA were literally blowing up shopping centres around the time their speech was restricted (not banned) on national TV. Sinn Fein mps were elected because of our weird fptp system and the extreme concentration of nationalist voting blocks.

I didn’t agree with banning Gerry Adam’s voice and had sympathy with the nationalist cause, but let’s not make out like these were mainstream figures. Adam’s and McGuinness were apologists for people waging war against the British state. I strongly suspect a communist group with similar aims would get short shrift in the US.

Free speech is never absolute. Europe and the US have different mechanisms to protect free expression, but net they don’t end up in very different places.