Turns out a small forum ran by a bunch of nerds (I mean that affectionately) in the early 2000’s was pretty pro-free speech.

That's the only kind of forum to be that then.

Don’t think just because -you- would ban someone for criticism that it’s “normal,” especially while unironically using the word “normies” in the next sentence.

What are you blabbering about, I've never banned anyone at all except for obvious spammers.

The first time I was a mod on a forum (2001) I deleted a single post from, and temp banned a known troll harassing another user… I was removed as a mod so fast it made my head spin, and was talked to about it all…

"Removed as a mod" is something weird really. Apparently you mean that you were a single topic mod or something like that.

At least I don't remember that being a common thing then. Someone would start a forum, attract first friends, then other users, and then some of the friends would become mods.

This is a cultural argument, though, I'm talking about Russian-speaking web, maybe English-speaking parts were nicer, but I'm not sure I'd believe that - I see all the same around, on Reddit and here (it's really much better here, though) and everywhere.