Yes, the last 10 years have been worse for free speech
greglukianoff.substack.com
greglukianoff.substack.com
It’s easy to point out 2x more college professors have been fired in recent years compared to the second red scare - but they neglect to point out that the number of college students has increased more than 7x since the McCarthy hearings. I couldn’t find exact numbers on professors for the same time period, but even if we assume class size per professor had doubled or tripled in that time, it more than explains the difference.
Similarly, social media is an incredible force for amplifying views, one that did not exist during the second red scare. It seems odd to index on that comparison when so much is different then vs now.
But, thankfully, the purity spirals have recently stopped spinning as aggressively.
Liberalism favors democracy, rule of law, freedom of things like speech, free trade, free-market economics to various extents, etc. Leftists oppose much of this. If you want to see what leftists support, just read about the history of the Soviet Union. (And if you want to see what the right-wingers support, read about the history of Nazi Germany.)
People are welcome to disagree about particular calls, i.e. whether X broke the rules or not, or how badly–but that's a different question than what the rules are.