It is for this reason that I feel like comment sections were a mistake. Newspapers shouldn’t have them. News media shouldn’t be quoting random tweets. Blogs should be more restrictive in who can comment. Social media platforms shouldn’t let content from people you haven’t explicitly subscribed to become part of your feed—and that includes retweets/reposts.

In my attempts to maintain some sanity, I consciously have to tell myself how the verity of comment sections should be ignored and never engaged with. I turn off reposts on any platform that has them. I use platforms that have a linear feed with no injected content (currently, Mastodon and Bluesky). I haven’t accepted comments on my site in years and will avoid comment sections on other people’s sites.