While in a general sense I agree with the excessively demonizing language all around, Discord is an inhuman villain in the world.
Speaking of 0 evidence, I’d like to stick a [citation needed] on this:
> It's exactly the kind of demonizing language that has unfortunately become common in recent years.
It reads like a thinly veiled “kids these days”.
This comment does the best job of explaining it:
https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=27118267
Writing like this is meant not to persuade, but to incite and coerce using emotion.
The question is, has it really become more common?
Sure. I don't really know what you're looking for in terms of citations, it's a general writing style. There's no database to query.
Personally, I see it all the time on Twitter, and more broadly online in left-of-center political discussions.
For people like you and I, this is bad rhetoric - not well written or argued. But I feel like this is how the younger generations communicate and persuade with online messages. Be short, make bold claims, and make a call to action based on a sense of justice.
It's exactly the kind of demonizing language that has unfortunately become common in recent years. By using dishonest wording to make your target look like an inhuman villain, it's easier to make the readers accept whatever the writer says. The writer then tries to sneakily shirk the responsibility to justify their claims. Just like at your quote:
> This is not good UX design. It is the opposite. It harms end-users. Revert the changes.
This wouldn't have passed my high school writing class. It's 3 arguments, 1 conclusion, and 0 evidence to support the conclusion. Instead of justifying their claims, people nowadays like to just throw out extreme words like "harm" and make it sound like Discord is installing keyloggers or something