It's always been dangerous to express unpopular opinions.
It may be less dangerous here and now than most places in history.
It may be less dangerous here and now than most places in history.
When people say how its dangerous to voice opinions nowadays, they aren't using medieval Europe as a reference point (where it was also very dangerous to voice unpopular opinions). The reference point people use is their own experiences online from ~10 years ago.
People used to be able to say whatever they wanted online, and now doing so is dangerous. You may think that is a good thing, but it is still unequivocally true that voicing unpopular opinions online is more dangerous than it used to be.
Making some snide remark about history is completely missing the point.
"Sex and gender are the same; they are immutable; and there are only two of them."
"Every child has a right to a mother and a father."
"An individual can't change his race."
"China is the world's worst human rights transgressor and currency manipulator."
The immutability of gender was controversial in 1991, but okay.
I'm not sure how bringing up anti LGBT crowds typing things like "it's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" 20 years ago shows there was no controversy on the internet 10 or 20 years ago.
If you are correct that typing things like that was not controversial, it sounds like identifying as gay or LGBT was indeed controversial, putting false the claim that the internet was a free speech utopia where you could type anything and nobody would care.
Normal people joined the internet and they want normal people things.
The internet is almost like real life now. Communication has consequences in real life, as kindergartners find out.
This is because the online audience is much larger than it used to be. I could say something on usenet in 1994 and the reach was pretty limited.
To be clear, stating unpopular opinions has always been dangerous if the wrong people hear them. Now its just that they're much more likely to hear it online.
As far as I can tell, that is all gone now. People with unpopular opinions just get banned immediately. Sometimes it is the same exact people in the exact same communities who 20 years ago would have wanted to hear that unpopular opinion. I don't know if the cause is that they have been trolled one too many times, they just got older and changed, something in the culture, who knows. The big sort keeps getting bigger though.