If anything the explosion of ubiquitous and instantaneous social media has only exacerbated the tendencies towards branding unorthodox thinking as Thoughtcrime as a twittermob of snark and hatred can be summoned in hours if not minutes.
Social media, at it's core, glorifies groupthink, rewarding you handsomely with stars and likes when you say the right thing. In time, you start thinking of what you should be saying, and then you start wondering what you should be posting so that you're perceived as a certain type of person. And when you start down that path, it feels like you become a bit more intellectually subservient. If your concern is always how to please people, how can you be expected to explore heresies? How can you plumb the depths of the unknown to explore and discover things when you concern yourself with safety?
The immediacy of the medium rewards snark and off-the-cuff remarks instead of analysis, insight, and distance. It incentivizes heated discussion (as it garners more pageviews!) and cheap, "me too" posts. It generates a fear of missing out, which is used to manipulate visitors into consuming more and more content for less and less value, exactly like any addictive substance.
It can come off as aggressive, for sure. I do think a healthy community needs skepticism and introspection to remain that way.
But I do think people unintentionally reinforce the notion of the status quo needs to be reinforced/destroyed, which can affect the types of thoughts you'd think about sharing with a group.
Yes... there are times I do just say fuck it and post it anyway. HNKarma is pretty worthless after all. :)
But more to the point, and the reason I hope this is tongue in cheek, I hope nobody here actually optimizes for or cares about a "HN Karma score in the bazillions." Last I checked you can't cash in HN Karma for a fiat $$$ check or happiness. There's a bigger world out there, folks.