>I catch myself starting to comment there and then deleting it because I’m worried about going too much against the acceptable narrative for each topic on the site, no matter how gently worded and hedged I make the comment.

but it's exactly the same here. hell, even reddit is less bad - even a thousand other people can't silence you there. how many terminally online powerusers does it take to get a comment [dead] and/or [flagged], three? five? and there are dozens of them in every controversial thread, where the approved opinions are expressed with as much low quality vitriol and snark as they please, while the wrong opinions get shut down no matter how civil and/or factual they might be, silently downvoted or flagged out of existence. I could find a hundred examples from my numerous throwaways, but without being as vague as this, I know I'll just get flagged.

now I often find myself doing the same thing you do - not bothering - and I hate what that means.