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"Online interactions are so toxic that they render ordinary people afraid to engage," says guy whose online interactions with me have been so unpleasant that I go to great lengths to avoid engaging with him.
If you're a person who escalates every online disagreement to a flamewar, you're going to repel people who are interested in actual conversation, and attract people who are willing to participate in your flamewars.
As a result, your experience of online interaction is going to be severely distorted, but that distortion is going to be invisible to you.
And when you then complain publicly about how toxic online spaces are, you'll be able to point to your own experience as proof of your claims. And bystanders, watching the conflagration that ensues, will find your claims convincing.
And those bystanders will come to believe that it's the nature of online spaces themselves to provoke such toxic behavior, and they will be afraid to engage with others in such spaces. And the cycle will be complete.
