It is absolutely an accident. Engagement recommender systems do not optimize for outrage, they optimize for engagement. It just turns out that outrage causes engagement. The difference is that at no point is there a human who says "Let's cause outrage!" It's the algorithms that figure out the connection, which is the point being made by the person you replied to.
The second it became clear that outrage causes more engagement than anything else, using an engagement optimizing system became equivalent to pushing for outrage. You cannot do otherwise without EXTREME intervention.
