Are we still allowed to be controversial without censorship?

Yes it's possible. But if you want to be controversial, you need to expect controversy. That's what the word implies.

From personal experience, it's far easier to cross the line completely than flirt with it.

If you are just a little off base, you will get a lot of pushbacks.

Once you cross the line for good, it's easier. 95% of the world population will not want to associate with you in any way. But you become part of a tribe.

If you have a hard time handling criticizing or being canceled, then don't do it.

It depends on the things you want to say and where you say them. In most countries, even the US, free speech has limitations.

If you stay within the law you are totally fine to say whatever you want, but it's a fuck around and find out situation, there might be consequences. If you say wild shit at work your employer might rethink your position, if you say wild shit to your friends they might not appreciate your company anymore, if you say wild shit online the platform might remove it. This is imo fair, you get to make your decisions, others can make theirs.

"Questioning a narrative" sounds innocent, but can certainly be used in hateful and malicious ways. The same rules apply; you can likely say it, but people might not appreciate it, and that's ok.

Often "I want to say controversial things" is a way to say "I want to say hateful things". The tolerance for hate speech is decreasing and hopefully will decrease further, which is great. If that applies to your situation (and I'm not saying it does), I suggest you question your narrative a bit more.

If it's not about hate speech you can absolutely discuss controversial takes, given that the other people are willing to hear about them and you have some decent arguments to back them up. I have plenty of controversial coding and design takes, nobody ever even tried to censor me, and some even agree!

I don't know what "mindless sycophants for $$$" means, but I see people "question the narrative" all the time, everywhere on the internet I go, even here on HN, which is aggressively moderated and tone-policed. I don't know why you seem to think that's impossible.

Maybe what you really want is to be able to freely question the narrative without anyone questioning yours?

>is an escape from such a system possible?

It will certainly be possible as soon as enough competent people try it. You have to know that new things and new solutions always attract the strangest people at the beginning, who often do not act very efficiently and rationally. That's because you have to be either crazy or pretty desperate to bite into a fruit that no one has ever bitten into before.

> is it actually possible to be controversial

This may be unintentional, but I find there’s a meaningful difference between having/making controversial opinions/ideas/statements and being controversial.

The former is (IMO) an important part of a tolerant and thinking society. The latter feels to me like attention seeking.