If you want to get technical, in America, where freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it still does not protect obscenity, defamation, incitement to riot, and fighting words. Anything that falls under these exceptions is not considered to be censorship.
Still, people easily use that as an excuse. It often leads to the attitude of, "I can be as rude as I want, because freedom of speech allows me to say anything."
In fact, one of my first linkshells in FFXI fell apart because of this very issue. There were two people (bf/gf) who insisted on spewing vulgarities across linkshell chat on a daily basis. Jokes about monkey rape and things that made our eyes bleed. And if you asked them to quit, they would laugh and say, "Aww, did I offend your delicate sensitivities?" So, it got to the point people stopped speaking up about it. Everyone just started leaving the linkshell.
Yes, you have the freedom to speak your mind. But also, as an adult, and a decent human being, should you not respect others enough to consider how it will affect them? Just because you can do something, should you?
