Yes and no.
On one hand, there's a definite tendency for some people to get caught up in certain subject being taboo. And there's certainly a growing sense in which some of my students feel their 'right' to discuss the ethics of some things is linked to their identities, e.g.: they can feel that only women have the right to discuss the rights or wrongs of certain issues (though I've usually gotten them out of that after a few weeks). Both of these issues are worth a post (at least) by themselves, and I'll tackle them both in the future. Spoilers: a lot of this would be better if people thought about why they were so keen to take contrary lines on certain issues, and stopped trying to use these discussions to advance their political views.
On the other hand, your question is about whether or not it's worse now than it used to be. I'm going to take a pretty unpopular line and say 'probably not'. Every generation has it's own taboos. There's discussions we have now that could have landed you in jail in most countries only 50 years ago. The further back you go, the worse it gets. Even great Enlightenment thinkers like Diderot had to work to keep on the right side of censorship and out of jail.
Good question though.
I think things definitely got better in the latter parts of last century and we could discuss almost anything without repercussions but I think some taboo subjects are harder to discuss now.
Even though I don't like milos yianopolus I see him getting shut down wherever he goes. Universities in the US sometimes close for the day when he's due to speak and teachers threaten the students that if they attend his talk they will fail and other similar repercussions.
Universities should be the cutting edge of critical thinking but seeing them close off unpopular lines of thought & discussion just seems wrong to me. I say let people put their theories and beliefs on the public record and then try to fault their logic rather than shut them before they can speak.