Before that, you could blog.
Before that, you could stand on a street corner and yell, or maybe use a megaphone.
The platforms for broadcasting your message to a large audience were mostly gated, often by large corporations. TV, Newspaper, Radio, etc.
It seems to me that what we are seeing is more like reversion to the mean.
It was great in the early days of the internet, because the communities were small, and often self policing. But once they get large enough it's very easy for the noise to overwhelm the signal. This idea of absolute free speech didn't scale once the population got large enough.
I don't even use Facebook and Twitter anymore because of this. (I also generally opt out of ad supported anything)
I'm really not convinced that providing a cheap / free platform for anyone to amplify their message was actually a net good. Not anymore at least. Like I said, it doesn't scale.
Before, the crazy and toxic could yell on the street corner. Now they have Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to shout their conspiracy theories etc.
IMO, we're overdue for scaling some of that back.
There is the right to say and think whatever you want. That does not imply the right to have your message amplified to millions.