For the most part, it was social media with it’s attendant Orwellian authoritarianism and demand for centralized control that ruined the internet. The internet used to be much more independent and less controlled.
Back in the 90s as a teenager, I used to find all manner of insane stuff via dial-up AOL. Early 2000s was full of us college guys just trolling and flame-baiting in the name of just having a good laugh on pre-social media forums.
Now you are lucky that you can even say that you love your nation without getting banned on some part of the web.
The future needs a replacement to the World Wide Web protocol. that is the only way to get out of this mess.