Sadly true. I saw the same thing happen in real-time as Imgur transitioned from being image hosting for Reddit to an independent network.

It went from people posting silly memes and cute dogs to angry political stuff dominating the front page every day.

I think you under estimate how much of the angry political stuff is driven by paid for content by people with an agenda - and companies like Meta have just taken the money.

Sure in the end it sweeps up indviduals but money and professional narrative shapers are often behind these things.

There are a cadre of highly competance professionals in the advertising/PR area that were massively enabled by the tools that Meta et al provided ( for money ) - suddenly you could run campaigns that were highly effective, relatively cheap, and almost invisible.

This has been ruthlessly exploited by people and organisations with more money that morals.

Goverments have in part been asleep at the wheel, but also too keen to use such tools for their own ends.