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Free speech protects journalists from being imprisoned for reporting on events in the world, with the angle to the story they see fit.

Free speech is not about preventing any old fart spewing actual falsifiable lies/misinformation from being silenced on a privately owned platform.

Free speech also isn't about choosing to disregard anti-misinformation laws in other parts of the world, in the name of said old farts' rights to say anything, but still insisting on serving customers in those same parts of the world.

That's what EU is fighting against. Misinformation spread on a platform serving EU customers is finable. If Twitter/X wants to stick to free speech principles without being fined, they have two options.

1. combat misinformation/lies (this isn't anti free speech)
2. geoblock the EU. Don't do business here

In many European countries, there's no American style free speech, there are laws that forbid some contents, such as racism, sexism and lgbtq-hate. People get fined and associations are dissolved because of it frequently.
I understand the argument for not letting a government control speech, because it seems against democratic. But when you see what's happening to the USA where about half the voters are voting for someone who wants to undermine its democracy, attack women, the poor and the minorities, maybe you would think that the impact of free hate speech on democracy can be destructive.

US companies can ~~fuck off~~ withdraw from the EU.

Also the US is not pro free speech. The first amendment only prevents the government from censoring not private entities such as twitter and other social media. They can in fact and do censor their users so them crying wolf about being censored themselves is ironic. After all they are not even human unlike (well some of) their users.

Going after platforms for the speech of their users,

The EU is going after X for selling blue check marks while marketing them as a sign of trustworthiness. They claim this is misleading. They're not going after X for anything the users said.

The issues with the US bulling their way in here is that while they set themselves up as the arbiters of free speech... these are not your counties. These are democratic institutions who have made independently made these decisions based on their concepts of what constitutes safeguarding the welfare of their citizens. They have determined that repeat targetted provably untrue propaganda based out of intellectual dishonesty that is designed to leave people angry at minorities creates conditions where people logically come to the conclusion that the killing, oppressing and subjugation of people to the point they see death as preferable to life is not okay.

The version of "free speech" that constantly gets toted as a universal good is essentially an experiment. When you see how something is functionally shaping your society and you see that while aspects of it are very healthy and cause additional stability and protection to people but a misuse is causing some people to be treated as subhuman then it's time to amend the rules. A government should be held accountable for the welfare of all it's citizens and those non-citizens whom it has temporary sovereignty over. Each country has the right to determine how best to initiate that directive. You are very welcome to defend your version of free speech as defined by American sensibilities on American ground, but American meddling in the ethics of countries whose value systems deal in more nuance would be very unwelcome. Quite frankly since the application of "free speech" under American terms has caused so much political stratification in their own homeland to the point where civil war or a breakdown of other democratic norms are snowballing they need to see to their own house before they can critique other nations.

Oh you mean the same government that was revealed to have worked with Twitter to ban political opposition under the same reasoning of misinformation and hate speech?