I dunno if I use anecdotal evidence too much, but from my experience, five years ago it was possible for people to have different political views, to have a civilised conversation about policies, to agree to disagree. Now virtually everyone I know has the same political views and no-one discusses policies (you can't fit policies into a tweet, its too complex).
I think it depends on where you are; for example, ISTM that supporting animal testing, GMOs, and the like used to be pretty much taboo on Facebook in my country until a few years ago, and I would have felt very uncomfortable expressing ideas that could be construed no matter how broadly as speciesist on my Facebook wall, whereas today there is a sizeable metacontrarian current which is mostly tolerated except by extreme environmentalist wingnuts.
ISTM that supporting animal testing, GMOs, and the like used to be pretty much taboo on Facebook in my country until a few years ago
Interesting - where do you live?
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