Quite the opposite - the fact that the default assumption of "what you (will) engage with" is a radioactive dumpster fire that you need to fastidiously Mute / Block / Not Interested / Less Like This / Not Relevant through to eventually "train" the algorithm to give you a consistent window into "really isn't as bad X" - that's proof that the default/average content and experience is every bit as bad as people make it out to be.
And it tries to sneak back in - even outside personal experience, "my feed started getting too toxic again and I had to retrain it with [indiscriminately following/liking a bunch of] cute animal posts" is a weirdly common sentiment I hear from non-tech-literate users (who probably aren't leveraging "proper" signals enough to ever fully clean out their timeline like you or I might).
Every website's "impact" will always be defined by their "default path".