My memory of the 2003 to 2008 time frame is different.
I recall mainstream complaints about GTA 3, released 2001. Famously, Senator Clinton asked the FTC to investigate GTA 3 over the "hot coffee" mod in 2005.
There was also the 2005 California Law [0] that banned the sale of violent video games to minors.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan...
And for many years (still rears its ugly head from time to time) "the game violence causes real violence" garbage.
Ahh, ok. So the moral panic of the early 80s, about 40 years ago.
The "video games cause real violence" argument was personified by Tipper Gore in the 90s, more than 30 years ago.
I don't recall anything from 15-20 years ago particular to conservatives. It has been mainstream since the 90s.
These days, any social media that allows "silos" eventually settles into such, and they are gate-kept. The strong silo-ing is also IMHO a byproduct of the modern social web of binary upvote / downvotes that fuel algorithmic feeds, a feature not present in the early days of the web, and (my theory) one that tends to reward the "strongest" opinions, which also tend to be the most extreme. "Left" or "right" isn't the problem I see regarding social media, instead it's the overall design. I don't know if Mastodon has avoided this (IMHO) cardinal sin or not.
> The reason given was that white people must not be able to opt out of the BIPOC experience of political outrage.
...or the modern left being by far the most racist ones out there