im pretty sure most people moved to discord because it is easy and has a lot of nice features, not because they were scared of global thought police

I'd say the evidence rather strongly suggests people are mostly going to discord to talk about video games and share anime art.

The most popular servers are for AI companies, and video games.

Which is not too surprising for a platform heavily designed around supporting video gaming.

Discord is popular because a very significant amount of people prefer the casual social instant chatting aspect over the slower threaded style of forums, especially young people.

I don't think this is true for most people on the big issues but do think it's true for a lot of small issues. Reddit (and HN) lead to a lot of pageant show dynamics where the people with the time to hit the buttons decide what content to boost. Small Discord communities are free from that.

That's not at all why my WoW guild moved to Discord.

>Discourse and opinions counter to the narrative pulled people away from public discussion due to fear or reprisal / issues

This is such a far fetched/reactionary comment, that it's frankly surprising it hasn't been flagged.

Discord become popular because they capitalized on the emerging online gaming community in the 2010s by offering a convenient and most importantly FREE platform for people to hop online and game with friends/talk with strangers who shared a similar interest.

Do you have an example of opinions that are counter to the narrative that faced reprisal?