> Alternative platforms appear to be more civil because they're islands of echo-chambers. The anger is still there, it's just directed at the more abstract out-group, rather than any individuals that are part of the conversation.

I'd say there are less bots and Putin-financed "fifth column" groups around on the Twitter alternatives, and that is the key thing. The porn spammers that make up half of the "likes" notifications on Twitter just don't see bsky or the fediverse as juicy targets and Instagram/Threads has far better tooling to yeet them, and the Putin propaganda army knows that the utter majority of people on bsky/fediverse are progressives where their points just don't appeal.

Social media would be way less toxic if the Western world had yeeted Russia off of the Internet after 2014.