We could all keep going back and forth in the comments with "This is almost always true" and "I don't think so", but that isn't going to get us anywhere. If you don't think this is true, can you give one example of it not being true? When was this hypothetical period in which anyone could express their opinions without the threat of them being labeled "ethically bad"?

There is a problem with your question. It’s definitely happened. I don’t know any example, because whenever I questioned such statements, it was always just to hide some racist, sexist, etc opinion. But still, I’m pretty sure, that there are cases. The problem is I can’t imagine that it’s more than 1% at this point. I questioned such statements too many times, and only a proper study can change my mind.

"When was this hypothetical period in which anyone could express their opinions without the threat of them being labeled "ethically bad"?"

I remember having decent discussions with people in the 2000s and being able to agree or disagree. It wasn't perfect by any means but I have noticed that in the last ten years with a lot of people it got increasingly more difficult to talk about an issue and developing thoughts while talking. It feels like you are either all in with "their" side or you get lumped in with the "other" side. Nuance not allowed.

Just my persnal experiennce.

Hmm, coincidence, you fondly remember with rose-tinted glasses a period which happened ~20 years ago. People always do.

To give you an US-centric example: arguing against discrimination of Muslim Americans during the early 2000s got you the same kind of anti-establishment pushback you can get for, say, criticising gay marriage today.

Yeah, people absolutely were shunned for unpopular opinions in the 2000s. 9/11 and the War on Terror caused a real coalescing of American society that was incredibly difficult to push back against. For example, the Patriot Act originally passed the Senate 98 to 1. Many people had their careers irreparably harmed by opposing the invasion of Iraq with the Dixie Chicks being the first to jump to mind. And regarding your point about the treatment of Muslims, does anyone remember the "Ground Zero Mosque"? This type of behavior is nothing new and pretending otherwise is certainly remembering the past with rose-tinted glasses.

With exactly the same people? Because every space on the internet which I regularly visit becomes worse because the influx of new people. My country’s subreddit was awesome when we were like 10000. Then it become famous at home, and everything went south.

Of course, it can happen also with the exact same person. For example, I wouldn’t have the same debates as 10 years ago. And also, when somebody say something which I disagree, I wouldn’t debate it, I would ask for a source, or just ignore it. Most of the time, I know immediately the source. But the only reason for this is age, and that in the past 20 years, I’ve already debated, and read a lot about basically every single topic which is politically important, and will be important in the next ~50 years.

I agree with original statement. But we can get there with a little thinking:

It is a fact people's view's are becoming more polarized. Some google searches will get you there. This is due to people now more than ever always having access to others who agree with their views, and ignore people who don't. This is the age of tinder swiping and (un)following (un)subsribing. People have become more replaceable. Agree with this person? This forum? Be there. Disagree? Leave. Like this person? Keep them. Dislike? Ghost them. We meet more people now than we ever meet in humanity's history. The need to learn how to deal with different views is going away, when you can always hide from them and go for places that have supporting views. The need for respectful disagreement is getting lower.

In the past there wasn't as much this choice. In the extreme, nomadic times, you had the same people all your life. Now we are at the other extreme. I'm not surprised that people's relationships are getting more and more superficial, and more temporary. There's always a "us" vs "them" to be had somewhere. With so many people, what used to be sporadic outliers, are now in massive numbers. Even if they still belong to the extremes of the natural distribution.

As we know, these people also tend to be more vocal, "the vocal minority" as it is usually referred, very opinionated, who defend their views to the end.

Then you could also add the fact the emotional trauma is spreading, although this one will make many people scratch their heads. Emotional trauma increases what we refer in psychology as negative affectivity "(...)a broad personality trait that refers to the stable tendency to experience negative emotion". Disagreeableness being one of the most typical ways in which this manifests itself.

Add to this the easyness of being anonymous, being rude without consequences and you get a perfect recipe for at any point you have a conversation online, getting obnoxious, opinionated, rude and disagreeable replies. The step from online conversation to IRL isn't that much of a step at this point, and it still makes sense the same is happening.

This is not a deduction, but a inference. But it fits everything i've just said: it's becoming more difficult to have an opinion, and not be attacked, shamed, mocked or invalidated by it.

It's becoming increasingly rare to hear "I see your point. What I in my view makes more sense is..." and instead "You're wrong, you have no clue what you're talking about and you should go hide yourself."

> Disagree? Leave.

This can be explained also with age. When somebody says something outrageous, I know the source immediately. For a while, I asked for a source. After the 100x time you get a very clear view about the source, and you just leave. This happened only because I’ve kept asking for a source for more than 10 years.

For example, if Canada, and “personal nouns” are in the same sentence, you know the source. You debated that at least a handful of times. You don’t want to do that again. It’s pointless. But still, I hear that fake news from time to time from my friends. Even after, I clearly proved them that it’s fake news. It’s just pointless.

The problem is that the well is poisoned. There are so many people abusing your caveats above that using them can lead to harm. This is well examined in Thank You for Smoking: the main character weaponizes “just stating his opinion” and different worldviews to influence public opinion. Trust is therefore eroded so that anyone who may actually have a good counter position is indistinguishable from bad actors.

I don’t want to say that justifies piling bad on bad. But that once the well is poisoned, we all die.

And ignoring “weaponisation”, just makes anybody part of the weaponisation. One very obvious example is the war in Ukraine, and protests for “peace” in western countries, which is a very obvious Russian propaganda tool.