You’re touching on a wider huge problem for society now: people make assumptions that ascribe malice when there is none (and/or vastly misunderstand something), and the internet lets this amplify and morph into bigger issues than should exist.

When social networking was nascent, there was this assumption that decentralized voices would help get truth out faster than could ever happen, and the principals of democracy would flourish. While that sometimes happens, it seems more often than not public opinion falls victim to conspiracy theories aided by cognitive biases (especially confirmation bias) and those who purposefully wish to distort.

What’s saddest to me is that I’ve come to the conclusion that the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. We cannot expect that technology will go backwards, and the only viable option is the China one of absolute information control, which itself is scary. Those who do not adopt this will be vulnerable to outside control and inside dark forces, and those who do will create a censorship authoritarian state.