I think you’re spot on, but a counterexample seems to be Twitter, where both low- and high-profile accounts engage in shit-flinging because it evokes reactions, and the algorithm doesn’t discriminate between positive and negative engagement.
Edit: and bitter arguments.
The effects of that go beyond just the awful emotional impact. People get fired for that kind of controversy. (I hesitate to call it "cancel culture" because of the implications in that term of who's canceling who).
I think the root cause is failure to assess certainty levels. For those people, "I know X" and "I don't know, but some weak evidence leads me to believe X" are exactly the same thing.
So they draw a conjecture based on what someone else said, assume that conjecture is correct, and vomit it as incontestable truth. Other assumers join in, take the anecdote as incontestable truth, and you have the rage spreading like a wildfire.
[Incidentally this kind of behaviour was what made me ditch Reddit. Not the power-tripping mods, or the corrupt admins, but the idiotic users. I'm glad I don't use Twitter, it seems like they fall in the same bag.]