No it wasn’t directed at you, I thought you might think that after I posted, and I thought of editing but didn’t - the caveat would have been that as this forum is IMO the most “grown up” forum I’ve ever been on, my comment wasn’t directed at anyone here because nobody I have encounter on here acts like that. Had it occurred on Reddit, Digital Spy, MN, Datalounge etc, there would have been several users it was made to be a spiky point about.
And your first point: yes and no, but mostly no.
“Smoking a fag” means shooting a gay guy in America and inhaling a cigarette in the UK. Should we ban the phrase “smoking a fag” or just the word “fag” in the UK because of connotations from America, a younger country with younger practices and language?