That makes intuitive sense, but hasn't matched what I've seen in real life. I have had much more interesting and polite conversations on Freenet (which provide

That makes intuitive sense, but hasn't matched what I've seen in real life. I have had much more interesting and polite conversations on Freenet (which provides almost complete anonymity) than I have had on Facebook, back when I used it. I'm guessing it's because the audience is smaller and less visible. I think people posture for the invisible audience they assume are watching their every post, so larger communities tend to go south much more quickly than smaller more focused ones. You also get more group-think and mob-like behavior. As another example, smaller subreddits on reddit are much more polite and fun (in my experience) than the main subs. Whenever a subreddit I'm on gets linked to r/all, I just skip that post for my general mental stability. Youtube comments are another example, which are generally terrible in my experience and are visible by a huge potential audience.