There are many, many IRC networks that are still very active with tens of thousands of active users. Libera.chat is probably the best one I can suggest at the m

There are many, many IRC networks that are still very active with tens of thousands of active users. Libera.chat is probably the best one I can suggest at the moment for a wide selection of topics. Politics, news, every tech group and subject under the sun, etc... I've run https://n.tkte.ch/ https://n.tkte.ch/ for the last decade and it's bots are currently connected to over 200 unique, active IRC servers. Still very much alive!