A more likely scenario is a bunch of teenagers saw it (it does look kind of dumb after all) and kicked the crap out of it, all the while laughing.
This isn't a reflection on our society, robots, or anything else. It was most likely a few people having fun.
What I do see as a reflection of our changing society is everyone's hypersensitivity to nearly everything. Let's all go back to our unoffensive, algo-curated safezones.
I agree that society, including the Internet, has become too hypersensitive. To the point where a comment in (January) 2018 feigning ignorance of how things were in 2015 is taken at face value instead of rhetorically :).
edit: I think you are right though, that it probably was pranksters/drunken idiots. Someone who dropped it off claimed to have early-morning surveillance footage of it being attacked in a touristy part of town.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150804_Can_hitchBOT_be_s...
> The video was posted by Jesse Wellens, the Philadelphian who said he found the robot while driving around early Saturday. He said he held on to the robot for a couple of hours, then dropped it off on a bench on Second Street at Elfreth's Alley between 4:30 and 5 a.m. The footage shows a man kicking hitchBOT on the bench around 5:45 a.m., according to a date tag on the video. The assailant is wearing a No. 12 Eagles jersey, the number worn by Randall Cunningham.
My 2018 mindset pictured a "bot" as something that had some kind of autonomous movement/behavior but it was for all intents and purposes a box with a camera. I think Hitchbot's survival chances were extremely low if left unattended late at night near a bar scene, Philadelphia or elsewhere.
As to whether Hitchbot's fate was sealed because it ventured through a high crime area (article doesn't say specifically where in Philadelphia) -- I imagine such neighborhoods may also have highly suspicious attitudes towards automatons with cameras.
edit: More context:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150806_Pranksters_admit_...
tl;dr Hitchbot was found dismembered in what sounds like a touristy, bar-filled area of Philadelphia. Someone claimed to have footage of it being dismembered, but it turned out it was just a prankster who faked the footage to capitalize on the attention. So it's not even certain where or when Hitchbot "died". But Hitchbot is not really a "bot" as we (or at least I) think about them these days, e.g. the "suicidal" security bot in D.C. that stumbled its way into a fountain [0]. Hitchbot was entirely dependent on people picking it up and dropping it off. The chances of someone choosing to drive late at night to an area of high violent crime seem low in general, nevermind to drop off a robot there.
Ironically I think its chances of survival would be just as good in inner city Philadelphia as it would be near any sports bar in America (or the world), late at night.
[0] http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/07/robot-security-guard-comm...