"I don't know what you mean by " comments pages on papers, etc" "
Most online papers now offer the facility for readers to post comments (surely you must have seen that?!)
Often on articles that don't reallyl have a lot to say for themselves let alone invite anyone else to chip in
We've never had more opportunities to express ourselves. And there consequently also has never been more opportunity to give and take offence. Complaining about people complaining tho strikes me as spectacularly missing the point - and in a sense is a contradiction.
I may have mentioned this before but a certain writer recently caused a storm by casually complaining, quite freely, on twitter that she'd overheard two airline employees engaging, quite freely, in a "transphobic" conversation. This drew an outraged article from an irish Times columnist, who in turn complained, quite freely, that this writer was trying to censor free speech.
This article was shared on Facebook, quite freely, by a fellow writer who invited comments from his friends. They all complained, quite freely, that such imagined censorship was a disgrace. Somehow, amidst all that socal media, the irony was lost on all of them it seems.