Welcome to Steemit. I think you'll find it to be a refreshing place, as people here are almost always respectful of others' opinions. Most people who have contributed in making Steemit what it is have taken care to create an environment where people can speak freely without worrying about personal attacks. Personally, I've had many experiences where people have disagreed with me, but still upvoted me and commented politely, because they liked the way I expressed myself.
Being a distributed system, Steemit is also very censorship resistant compared to Facebook.
It's remarkable how this technology can encourage us to get along and explore different points of view.
Good luck and have fun; I'm sure you'll have a good time here.