IMHO free speech never really existed. It was only tolerated as long as it had no major impact on society.
If an unwanted speaker got too much attention, he was always eliminated.
Because of the free flow of information today information needs to be censored more obviously because it could possibly challenge the official narrative and question the government on a larger scale.
I think what is going on now is that they establish the legal framework to filter information to be able to control unwanted information once we are all connected to the grid with implants and download the hive mind. The research for this is advanced. The patents for this are present, so is the hardware. What's missing is the infrastructure, like 5G. And this will come soon.