It's pretty much the same thing yeah: you find something you're somewhat interested in, and then The Algorithm will shove increasingly aggressive content at you and hey presto, you've fallen down the rage-bait circlejerk hole for whatever side you were already somewhat aligned with.

I'm old enough to remember when you could have friends with different political opinions and it never went past 'oh, cool, well i don't agree but whatever'. That's 100% not a thing anymore, because everyone on both sides of any issue have been completely radicalized.

The right are Nazis, and the left are raping children, and that's where the discussion starts now, and thus you have... the mess we have now.

I don't know what the solution is, other than literal deprogramming, since that's almost exactly how a cult works: the cult leader affirms what you already think, tells you that you're special, and then makes sure no voices of dissent are heard.

You know, like social media's algorithms do in the name of "engagement".