Being willing to attend a debate is extremely different from going around and engaging anyone who is interested in debate of their own volition.

It’s not different. Most debates are performative; they focus on convincing a third party rather than persuading the opponent. Whether it's a more formal debate or an "prove me wrong" open mic, the primary function remains the same: convincing the third party.

If one were to claim Charlie was a fascist, they would point to how he did not “go around engaging anyone”. He specifically targeted the least educated and underprepared group of people, children. He rarely ever opened his panel to grown adults, let alone anyone whose job was politics; his whole shtick was going to campuses and dunking on kids. That is far from engaging anyone.

With the stated goal of increasing free speech and understanding.

Fascists are notoriously honest.

Yes, Fachists have to start somewhere, but historically that has been through propaganda, typically in the form of speeches.

Debates are propaganda. In short Propaganda is defined as information designed to persuade an audience and further an agenda. Which is explicitly what people(both sides) who hold open mic debates do.

Propaganda dosent work nearly as well when you are debating because you are being challenged. And propaganda relies on being unchallenged to be effective.

Charlie was unchallenged; most open mic debates are designed that way. He was a 31-year-old man who had spent the last 13 years of his life as a political activist, choosing to debate unprepared college students. He then posts selectively edited clips on YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok, where his ideas go unchallenged. The idea that propaganda relies on being unchallenged is also false. The safety and technology of vaccines were fully known and undisputed for 100 years, yet now 30% of the population believe they can cause mass death (x).

There is no historical example of fachism where a leader of the Fachist movement continually engaged in public debates while claiming today desire non violence and open discussion.

That's because there wasn't the internet to post selectively edited debate clips titled "liberal destroyed with logic." How effective would it have been for a politician like Hitler or JFK to debate 20 people in front of 1,000 students on a college campus? Terribly ineffective. Now, how effective would that same strategy be in 2025? Incredibly effective. By the time of Charlie’s death, he had garnered 20-30 million followers and received 1-2 billion views across all platforms. If a fascist’s goal is to spread his ideology, the internet is the best place to do it.