wow, I feel like the overton window hasn't just shifted, it's off the page. Back in the 90s we would openly share the Anarchist's Cookbook, CIA field manual for sabotage, etc. then lace our emails intentionally with "trigger words" when it was theorized that the NSA was reading all Internet traffic, so as to emphasize our free speech absolutism.

Now, an article comes out about sentences handed down for ... free speech ... and the reaction is to close the tab because they ... made some speech that you didn't like? Free speech for me, not for thee?

These free speech warriors didn’t actually care about free speech. They just wanted to be able to say horrible things without consequences.

You're talking about a different group of people. Back then, the only people who were online were relatively technical, which for whatever reason correlates with leaning libertarian (left or right). My theory is that the experience of identifying a solution to a problem, then being told it can't be implemented because someone with authority says "no" shakes one's belief in authority fundamentally.

Regardless, nowadays online, even in tech circles like this one, you have a much broader sample of the general population. In the case of HN, it's split more evenly than you'd expect from the general population between software developers, and tech entrepreneur types (or at least wannabes). The latter group is perfectly happy with oppressive power structures as long as they help them make money, and aspire to be the authority that says "no".