Not really. The contentious part in your claim is the "a LOT". You need to prove that it got worse under COVID in degree even remotely comparable to how it got worse after 9/11.
Also 9 churches have been burned in the last month alone. In the US riots something like 60 people died, and countless businesses and livelihoods were destroyed.
I would say its a LOT.
And I think I understand why, it's because we worry less about the stuff that we think few other people believe, and more about things that we think lots of other people will believe and act on. Flat-earthers were firmly in the "who cares" category for a long time (and probably still are but I'm less sure these days).
But it's unfortunate that the COVID-19 related content is now setting the precedent for what kind of speech should be scrubbed from all popular platforms and hosts, with what kind of government guidance and public pressure.
Also take into account that the common person who works on Windows at work might also work at windows at home.
And then there is gaming.
Microsoft is not going away anytime soon. Especially with Apple’s move towards dropping 32-bit and the general consumers not adopting Linux anytime soon.
But with WINE's rapid development, cloud gaming becoming more popular (just yesterday for instance Xbox Cloud Gaming became available for Linux browsers) and VFIO becoming easier I don't expect this to be an issue still in the next few years.
Also this Microsoft press release has a lot more information in it than the Rueters article https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2021/06/30/the-nee... "We have reviewed the number of secrecy orders that federal law enforcement agencies have presented to us from 2016 to the present, a period that spans the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. We found that while the number has increased some, federal law enforcement has consistently presented us with 2,400 to 3,500 secrecy orders each year, or 7-10 per day, representing one-quarter to one-third of all the legal demands we received. These are just the demands that Microsoft, just one cloud service provider, received. "
If anything MS and Bill Gates have a vastly better public image than 20 years ago. Bill Gates has gone from the public image of a lucky fool with blue screening on national TV more than once to some kind of public intellectual that the public wants to follow.
I have read about what Canada is about to do and it does seem completely insane.
That painstakingly constructed PR success has somewhat eroded recently.
It’s amazing what a PR budget can do over twenty years.
Canada does not have a concept of "free speech", the fuck are you talking about. Canada has a concept of freedom of expression, which has certain limits, such as Hate speech.
I'm so sorry you will no longer be able to call for a genocide against a group you hold prejudices against, boo fucking hoo.
If homosexuals have their rights ignored in some far off country you must just shrug your shoulders, they don't have rights in those countries.
Tilting at windmills under the delusion they are giants does not make you a fighter of giants.
Canada is about to pass draconian laws for the purpose of monitoring and restrict Canadian's online free speech rights and jail people for 2 years, and pay 70k fine for things like saying the N word online.