Obvious as it may sound, people with authoritarian beliefs hiding behind free speech actually consider it as a weakness akin empathy. It allows losers like them to amplify their reach despite not being in power. They abandon their “free speech absolutist” postures the moment they think they are in power.
Yes.
Fascist ideologies, like Nazism, are explicitly anti-liberalist. They don’t believe in the very concept of liberties. They explicitly write down on paper why they believe democracy and freedom is a failure. So, when you see one pulling the free speech card, they’re simply trying to appeal to your beliefs, or society’s beliefs, to give themselves a platform. It’s inherently insincere, they’re mocking you.
Nazis have to act like this. History has shown us, without doubt, how repulsive their plans are both in theory and in practice, so until they have power, they cannot show their true colors. They can’t just be honest and play “might is right” yet because communities would just do the right thing and violently extinguish their movement (including, but not limited to, punching them on sight). So they must hide behind society’s privileges, the rights and freedoms of liberalism. They can enjoy police protection at protests to save them from the people they work to have killed, they can sue people for collecting intelligence on them and getting them fired, they can just point out liberalist hypocracy if their freedoms are violated, but listen to leaks and how they organize behind closed doors to know that’s simply opportunistic cowardice.