I am basing this on nothing but my own opinion. This has been going on for a while. Sometime around 2010-2012 many news sites started removing their comment sec

I am basing this on nothing but my own opinion. This has been going on for a while. Sometime around 2010-2012 many news sites started removing their comment sections. While most people thought many of these comment sections were "cancer", it was a still way to comment on, add context to, or dispute something posted to a news site. The claim was that "trolls" were causing too many problems. This was around the same time the definition of troll changed to mean anyone who disagreed with the OP or the content of a news article. Once that happened, more and more opinion pieces started to be passed around as "news" articles. As opinions are biased, those biases got more and more apparent over time. With a lack of a way to respond, people turned to Twitter and other services. Add to that, a continual redefining of what speech is "appropriate" and what speech is "problematic". This was a further attempt to control the discussion/debate by defining what tools could and could not be used when discussing/debating. This is seen by many who do not consider themselves "liberal" or deeply concerned with social justice issues as another attempt to exert power and control the narrative by silencing any opposition. That's where it's all coming from. Toxic, problematic, etc. Are just synonyms for those who exert power, namely those few who are given a voice...the self-described journalist's, to label stuff they don't like. They use other terms like racist, mysoginy, Nazi, Alt-right, all synonyms for people who hold ideas contrary to their own. As soon as we have a level playing field online, where all voices can be heard, not just blue checkmark, then maybe we'll make progress. Until then, things will get so worse and when they have the power to do so, these avenues of expression...FB, Twitter, will just be more places where you can express yourself freely as long as you say what you are allowed to say.