It comes from a combination of things that always existed getting online and the monetization of the attention economy. Influence operations (both corporate and governmental) are the source of most of the problems. Bots, influencers pushing propaganda, etc. I suspect you are actually a bot but others might read this so...

The biggest changes to the Internet over the last few years are usually in the political spaces. There are a few other things but mostly its political. Those other things always existed but now they are online. But this isn't the fault of the communications medium, its the ills of society leaking into online spaces. If we banned those things online, you still as a parent have to worry about them happening IRL. Its better to talk to your kids about these dangers honestly and it always has been. Its always been easier to just prevent your children from being exposed to those dangers but that usually backfires later on. Banning unpopular political discourse to do that has never been the answer to these issues. But in this case, banning discourse is the goal and children are just the excuse. As proof of this, the same government pushing this only instituted a real drinking age in the last 10 years, in a country known for making liquor.

> I suspect you are actually a bot but others might read this so...

I'm floored lol. What gives you this impression?

The worst part of this inflammatory nonsense is that, sadly, I'm probably the only person that will read your full comment. And I fundamentally disagree with your thesis of attributing this to "politics". Social media and its effects were poisonous long before "politics" were so prominent. You could see it even during early Obama times. The simple infinite scroll and forcing individuals to so regularly compare themselves to each other was already awful long before "politics".