IMO that probably has more to do with changes in your own reading habits or maturity level vs. 5-7 years ago. As toxic and ridiculous as any sort of electronic forum can get, I don't think it's any different now than it was on Usenet circa 1995.

For example, I started reading Slashdot not long after it started ('96?). I really enjoyed it, read it every day, occasionally posted. Then sometime around 2000 I just got disgusted with the quality of the comments- it seemed like there was a long slow decline, and no longer did the average commenter seem like they were my age or older, my level of experience or greater, my level of knowledge or greater- instead it just seems like a cesspool of pointless, toxic flamewars about stupid things that seemed to exist for their own sake. Reading Slashdot comments started making me feel stupider and angrier, not more informed. So I eventually stopped reading Slashdot.

But then, over the years I would talk to various people younger than me with the same experience- the only thing that changed was which year they thought Slashdot was good, and which year they thought it went so downhill that they just couldn't read it anymore. Like, "Slashdot was awesome circa 2007 but by 2011 all the commenters sounded like toxic teenagers". Which makes me think that what actually happened was Slashdot comments were always terrible, but if you started reading it your larval hacker years you might not know any better. Then you grow up some more and get more knowledgeable and mature, and the same level of commentary seems really inane.