Automatic Semicolon Insertion (ASI) has (sadly) been a part of JavaScript longer than 2016. I’m not sure exactly when it was introduced, but this document from 2009 already contains it: https://web.archive.org/web/20120418215856/https://ecma262-5.com/ELS5_Section_7.htm#Section_7.9
IMO it’s bad practice to rely on ASI since the semicolons may not get inserted where you expected them to. The following snippet
const x = 0
const y = x
[1, 2, 3].forEach(console.log)
is interpreted as
const x = 0;
const y = x[1, 2, 3].forEach(console.log);
which raises a TypeError.
There are more examples of ASI not doing the right thing on the web, so I don’t agree with “Javascript doesn’t need semicolon”.
Torsten Heinrich: https://youtube.com/@MilitarGeschichte