It can be difficult to discuss technical issues inside an enterprise, but if it turns into a social liability, either you enterprise culture is extraordinarily corrosive to the soul, or what you're doing is culture war.
The words they used are social liability, not merely controversial. It's a pretty high bar for how wrong a discussion in an enterprise has to go that it turns into a social liability.
Maybe they're thinking about what they said, which is seeking out truth about issues that happen to be thrown around in culture war?
Anyway, you don't have to go all the way there for knowledge to become a social liability. The more you understand about the universe and the human world - hell, the more permission to think you give yourself - the more you realize just how much utter bullshit regular people believe about everything. Homeopathy, weird coaching stuff, fitness and dieting and cosmetics. This supplement will help your health, that fruit will stop some ailment, looking at a microwave when it's cooking will ruin your eyes, etc. Most of this bullshit is fed by content marketers, through magazines, shows, radio, podcasts, and social media.
I have a whole rant about ethics of advertising, but that's for another day; point here is: it doesn't take much truth-seeking before it gets incredibly cringe to talk with most people. You either let them keep believing in bullshit and suffer inside, or speak up and end up being pushed out of the group.
But if the truth-seeking you're thinking of is being a culture war truther, that'd certainly explain the woes.