Yeah, they probably were. I might be a bit more sensitive because I’ve seen people ruined by simple stuff like this, and algorithms that encorage going further down the shock, anger, and fear pipeline. I’m pretty adamant that people fact check instead of being shocked, as those moms and aunties might become future Ashli Babbitts. That of course could be just me paying more attention to that side of indoctrination, because I worry what harm it could cause.
Still, I was mostly engaging in an discussion that cherry picked stuff is dangerous even if people don’t think it is. Plenty of people have been radicalized starting with jokes and minor misunderstandings that never got corrected. I try to at least steer people towards looking into things even occasionally on joke posts. It may be overreacting, but I remember a time where I was dumb enough to accept “Nice guys finish last” as a somewhat true joke.