If I design a city whose main artery is a highway where traffic grinds to a halt for two hours every day at 6 o'clock, I'm going to see frequent incidents of road rage. The takeaway there isn't "people are toxic", it's just "people can be toxic when they're stuck in traffic"

People behave in predictable ways in specific environments. Social media brings out the same side of human nature as does a blank wall and a Sharpie in a gas station men's room.

Just turns out there are a tonne of environments that make people behave in toxic ways.

People pretty much are toxic.

There aren't a tonne of environments on the internet today, though: there's effectively one.

It's generally: normal people thrown into a garbage dump with a few psychotic basket cases, some attention-seeking ten-year-olds, some bots, viral-marketers, narcissistic grifters... all with pseudonymity, and scant moderation.

If you were to lock twenty Tom-Hanks-level-affable people, into a room with three people who continually rant, push buttons, interrupt you, tell obvious lies, and spout inanities, eventually you'll have 23 badly behaved people.

The design of the internet, especially its current incarnation, incentivizes stupidity and vitriol.