So we can summarize as "there's been a huge uptick in the toxicity online (which was always there)?"
I think the GP has nailed it, however - we are reporting theatre hecklers as news, and instead of watching the play, everyone is now watching the punch-up in the aisles, and placing wagers.
The problem is that the theatre is on fire, but that hasn’t quite yet eclipsed the spectacle of a good old fashioned confrontation.
Well, that didn't happen. What happened instead is that the ongoing discussions seem to stir up even more disagreement; and people are not really talking to each other, they rather signal their belonging to this or that faction. Also, the internet has been weaponised: leaving aside the organised "troll factories", any group that feels strongly about something can try to impose it to everyone else just by occupying as much space as possible. And then, if others express publicly their own ideas, don't you want your idea to be represented too? Then it becomes a shouting match, where each faction tries to fill as much public space as possible by shouting at the top of its lungs.
Part of this is the traditional media's fault. We thought newspapers and tv networks were going to die, drowned in the huge amount of available information sources. Instead, the web is still hierarchical: few media outlets shape the conversation deciding what to report on and how, then everyone else has the choice of closing ranks around the proposed narrative or in opposition to it. The dream of global peer-to-peer conversations didn't really come to be.
Group dynamics are crazy - you can use them to get people who might be drinking buddies to instead get into tin cans and try to murder each other, because you’re using the ultimate anonymity of a battlefield to let slip the dogs of war.
I think people have realized what the real line of what will be tolerated in society. There isn't any repercussion for being a pos in real life or online. I think we're to polite to the people being rude.
Judgement of whether this is good or bad aside, it is definitely easier to maintain peace and harmony when the socio/economic/cultural differences are smaller. Those days are long gone.
I'm finding the only winning move is not to play (i.e. "don't go to the theatre; stay home and read a book")
The US political polarization is more widespread, on and offline, but online discourse is still pretty mild compared to the old days of greater anonymity.
Enforcement of community standards has backfired in the form of weaponised censorship.
Anyway, I don't comment on any services that use a real name policy. I'd prefer that my name didn't appear on the Internet at all, but don't fight against it when it inevitably happens via some participant lists and whatnot.
Even where there's some anonymity by using a user name, there's rarely anonymity from legal authorities, who can easily access your entire internet and location history - and a VPN won't help you, because those aren't secure.