If you ever come across anyone who says "Free speech is violence,” you may find useful this September 1, 2021 FIRE article by Nadine Strossen and Greg Lukianoff: “Free speech does not equal violence: Part 1 of answers to bad arguments against free speech from Nadine Strossen and Greg Lukianoff”.
On campus, I often run into people — not only students, but professors — who seem to think they’re the first to notice that the speech/violence distinction is a social construct. They conclude that this means it’s an arbitrary distinction — and that, since it’s arbitrary, the line can be put where they please. (Conveniently, they draw the line based on their personal views: If it’s speech that they happen to hate, then it just might be violence.)
Ironically, the whole point of freedom of speech, from its beginning, has been to enable people to sort things out without resorting to violence.
A quotation often attributed to Sigmund Freud (which he attributed to another writer) conveys this: “The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.”
If you like this, read the whole thing.