We run the risk of losing our moral compass, in all of this. In their virulence and fury, some righteous defences become very personal attacks. Coming on one of these exchanges out of context, it’s difficult to say who the good guys are, because you don’t know who started it or who is upholding the right.
Who started it makes a poor excuse, anyway. Surely morality must be more than a sequencing issue. Hatred in one direction, in response, looks pretty much like hatred in another, unprovoked. The difference between trolls and defenders of the faith becomes lost, because the primary injunction in all our moral codes isn’t “Be Second”, it’s “Be kind”.
As an individual addressing another individual: be kind.
And we’re not.
Middle-aged Male Anorexic 