It's a general phenomenon not only tied to free speech. When the concept of human rights was born, it was - roughly - to protect citizens from those who had power. Those who had power were, of course, the administrations and their representatives. It was unthinkable at that time that any company could ever have more power than a state.

This has changed a lot. Today, the power is in the hands of a few selected multi-national companies. Legislations are being influenced by those companies. There's probably not one single western parliament that makes decisions without being exposed to lobbying.

Even worse, decisions that aren't and never will be subject to any law are made by companies ... and they influence your lives just as laws would. When facebook decides you must not place ads for your small business there, but all of your competitors may, they can well ruin you with that (if your business model required these ads).

So what we have today is the companies that threaten both individuals and administrations... plus a collection of basic human rights (such as free speech) that protects the individual from the administrations. Nobody's protecting anyone from those who have the power today: the companies; the capital.