[INTPenis]

>It turned into a disaster the moment people decided it was also a good place to discuss news and politics.

Nail on head right here.

I was never big on social media, got into StatusNet (later ActivityPub) back in 2017 because it seemed cool technically.

So for years it was a very nice place where people mostly discussed very niche topics like computers and art.

Then Elon decided to stir the pot by trying to buy twitter and two huge waves of twitter users came over in 2022.

Now it's toxic, and I honestly believe it's because of the political and news discussions. Well they go hand in hand because people link to the news about what's going on in politics, and this is the catalyst.