It really was that for the time, it's like "you may not like what he does but if you care about free speech, that's the sort of thing you have to live next to". As far as I'm aware, it wasn't illegal but I'm sure that varies from country to country.
Keep in mind that Shadman also comes from a time on the Internet where you didn't have brigades of trannies cancelling everyone for every little thing. You could have sites like BestGore, LiveLeak, 4chan back when it wasn't just a 24/7 porn spam, schizo/x/ sites, you could upload whatever you wanted on YouTube, etc.
Posting Shadman in any context was mostly for trolling and would get you laughed at, I frankly prefer that, that everyone can come together and call you a faggot for liking it without having a bunch of people demanding companies to drop you.
Given the state of the Internet today and the fact that literal groomers and pedophiles have found a way to cancel people for opinions they don't like, I rather reinstate the old Internet, even it it means people like Shadman get to run around with their retarded drawings.