I agree with everything you’ve said here.

But rather than asking whether something violates the US laws against free speech, the more interesting question for me, is, on a platform like Medium, where there is a stated goal of facilitating constructive discussion, what are the best guidelines that, although perhaps representing a limitation on our freedom of speech, would ultimately serve the stated goal of facilitating discussion?

That is, what are the best rules that will help the best ideas rise to the top?

I think Medium is correct to have rules against ad hominem attacks and harassment. But I also think they sometimes exercise poor judgment in this regard, having given warnings to people like Argumentative Penguin and Tessa Schlesinger, not for attacks or harassment, but just for stating an opinion that someone didn't like.

In addition to Medium's abuse policies though, I'd like to see a couple other rules put in place, for instance:

1. We shouldn't allow anyone to project intentions or ideology on someone else. For instance, we shouldn't be able to call someone a sexist or a racist, unless they adopt that term for themself.

2. We shouldn't allow straw man fallacies. This is similar to the first one. It's a projection of a stance onto another person, and is akin to gaslighting.

I see these all the time on Medium, and I think discussion would be a lot better if we could limit people's use of them.

The reason why free speech is important, is ultimately so that good ideas don't get squashed by dominant bad ideas that should be replaced. What are the best rules that will allow that to happen?