How is freedom of speech meaningful if you have to always bear consequences of it like it would be in a society without freedom of speech?
In a democratic and free country you'll be punished if you communicate hate speech or anything that someone may deem offensive , similarly in a dictatorship you'll be punished if your speech offends the dictatorship.
Of course the punishment would be harsher and criteria of punishable speech would be different in a dictatorship , but that goes for all the laws in a dictatorship and not something specific to prohibition of free speech.
So essentially even in a free country you can only communicate something that is not offensive to someone, even then anyone can go legal and may prove that what you deemed innocent was actually offensive.
This is the same idea as in a dictatorship with only change in laws that tell whats offensive so whats the point of calling it free speech?