I'd argue free speech is in a historically relatively good place (from my perspective in the US at least). In recent history within the US, there were times that film was not considered protected speech, comedians were arrested for saying simple swear words, and like a zillion different times protesters and laborers were killed for their speech. Protesters are killed far less often today. Plus, with the internet, people have platforms they haven't had before to reach others. You can get a message out far more effectively.
I'd also be careful not to conflate "people who think free speech is a bad idea" and "people who want limitations on speech."
"Limitations on speech" sounds bad, but that includes things like "child pornography is illegal", "you can't advertise your MLM during my physics lecture so please leave", "you can't spam your cryptocurrency here", and other basic moderation. Being a "free speech absolutist" would require rejecting even thsse limitations.
If you're on Hacker News, you're participating in a very very heavily moderated platform. This is also true of StackExchange. I think HackerNews and StackExchange are better for the strict limitations on speech on their platform. (If you turn "showdead" on, you'll see some pretty horrible comments on HackerNews, sometimes calling for deaths of groups or individuals, that are community-moderated away, i.e. censored.)
I would reject the claim that there's an uptick in people who are against free-speech. I don't see anything to substantiate that. I think instead there are disagreements on where to draw the line. "Free speech" is also a buzzword that is used in bad faith, usually divorced from any serious conversation about free speech, which complicates things.
If anything, I think it's a good sign that more people are educated about free-speech (both in terms of ideals and in terms of legal implications where it's a protected right), about censorship, and are having serious conversations about it.