Comment by SoylentOrange

I wonder how historically true it is that people had an ability to voice unpopular opinions without social consequence.

My parents are from the Soviet Union, so that example comes to mind most readily. Obviously speech was heavily restricted and policed in that time and place; a relative was briefly thrown in jail for handing out pro-democracy leaflets in the late 80s. My wife's family is from China, another country with a history of policing speech. There is a wonderful book called "The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution" which talks about the negative consequences of seemingly innocuous speech during the Cultural Revolution.

Lest people think I only have examples from overseas, when I was growing up here, I found that criticizing religion, even lightly, was problematic. Organized religion was something of a sacred cow until perhaps the early 2000s. I have gay friends, and coming to their support in the late 90s and early 2000s was difficult, with the majority of opposition coming from the religious community.

After 2001, criticizing the war on terror lead many public figures to be deplatformed (or canceled in modern terms). An example of this is the MSNBC host Phil Donahue [1]. Some of you may be old enough to remember the "support the troops not the war" slogan to try to get around these issues, with mixed success.

Maybe folks who are older than me can compare the attitudes now with other historical periods, but I don’t believe it’s more difficult now to vocalize an unpopular opinion than it used to be.

[1]: https://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/21/phil_donahue_on_his_2...