Clearly everyone wasn't being banned, some things were being allowed, but personally I think the conversation was being steered/herded in a way that made one particular point of view more prominent and minimised exposure to alternatives.
For example, I was banned from Reddit world news for simply sharing a science.org article about some of the potential vaccination side effects:
https://www.science.org/content/article/rare-cases-coronavir...
You have been banned for posting content that downplays or mocks necessary public health measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, such as taking vaccines or wearing masks in the comments section. Such comments violate this subreddit's rule against offensive content and reddit's guideline against harmful content:
Note that health misinformation, namely falsifiable health information that encourages or poses a significant risk of physical harm to the reader, also violates the Rule.
I can't contest this ban and it's permanent.
Censorship doesn't have to be perfect to be real and to have real effects.
Even in the case of twitter. Here: https://twitter.com/reuters/status/1536697529454272512
There's a tweet about the risks of covid vaccinations. If the government, twitter, or both were censoring discussion of the risks of covid vaccinations how does that exist? How do the countless other uncensored and easily searchable posts that do the same thing exist?
Isn't it more likely that if a post about the risks of covid vaccinations does get removed that it's for a reason other than because of an attempt to hide information about, and prevent discussion of, the risks of covid vaccinations?
Who do you think is telling people they can't talk about the risks? We're doing it. It's talked about all the time everywhere. It's researched every day. The media reports on it to the public. Nobody thinks that there aren't any risks. Whatever oppression exists in the world, "preventing people from talking about or learning about the risks of covid vaccines" is not an example of it.