Human

I think actions like this, unfortunately, are a necessary evil. It is too easy for moneyed interests to astroturf in a bid to alter public opinion and the us state dept, the billionaire class, and other various actors have very deep pockets. Whether the users in question are themselves the bad actors or just victims of these campaigns, who knows, but if unchallenged it will just metastasize and the internet becomes just like twitter and reddit.

I doubt there is a perfect solution to combat this - but the solution proposed here seems well considered and reasonable to me.

the switch to linux felt like getting out of an abusive relationship

I would start (if you havent already) with an introduction to CS. You can take CS50 for free online - https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2025/.

I dont think they cover much C# (I took the 2020 course and they didnt) but they do introduce you to C, C++, Python, html, etc. They provide github codespaces available for anyone for free, so you can complete the weekly labs and problem sets offered in the course. It really is a good jumping off point.