Sometimes you see blogs, or the internet more generally, blamed for encouraging angry and abusive modes of exchange. This is from a letter written to Henry James by Eliza Lynn Linton, probably in 1880:
My dear Mr. James, - As a very warm dispute about your intention in Daisy Miller was one among other causes why I have lost the most valuable intellectual friend I ever had, I do not think you will grudge me half a dozen words to tell me what you did really wish your readers to understand, so that I may set myself right or give my opponent reason. I will not tell you which side I took, as I want to be completely fair to him. Did you mean us to understand that Daisy went on in her mad way with Giovanelli just in defiance of public opinion, urged thereto by the opposition made and the talk she excited? or because she was simply too innocent, too heedless, and too little conscious of appearance to understand what people made such a fuss about; or indeed the whole bearing of the fuss altogether? Was she obstinate and defying, or superficial and careless?
In this difference of view lies the cause of a quarrel so serious, that, after dinner, an American, who sided with my opponent and against me, came to me in the drawing-room and said how sorry he was that any gentleman should have spoken to any lady with the 'unbridled insolence' with which this gentleman had spoken to me. So I leave you to judge of the bitterness of the dispute...
A friendship broken over Daisy Miller - defiant or too innocent? In replying, Henry James, her creator, wisely says, 'Poor little D.M. was (as I understand her)...' (Source.)