Great comment. I hadn't even thought of how years of the admins' appeasement brought them to this situation. If they nipped these communities in the bud, they'd have never become such a powerful user base. But yes, the "free speech" argument never held up for me. People hiding behind "free speech" are essentially saying a publisher has an obligation to publish their content, which limits the publisher's freedom of expression. I understand that publishers as gatekeepers can be a problem when the means of publishing are privately controlled, but I don't think this is the case with a single website on the Internet. These people can go to other websites, they can create their own, and they are free to spread their messages some other way.
The free speech argument is pretty facetious. If the only argument that you can make for voicing your opinion is that it's technically not illegal to say, then there's probably something wrong with your opinion.
The free speech argument never held up for me because your average Redditor (ie not an admin or a mod) is just a pleb who has as little "rights" then as they do now. Where's the protection against censorship when the FPH mods banned everyone who didn't tow the "fuck fat people" line? Whatever change in policy the admins have in store strictly speaking only affects the way mods govern their subreddits. Mods can ban me from their subreddit on a whim and it's not like an admin is going to spend time monitoring my account and ban me because I called someone a faggot. So, really, this whole drama is just a power struggle between the admins and the mods. I really don't see why the plebs would care since they really don't have a stake in this either way. Except if you hate black people I guess.