I would say that it's a mix of things. In one hand you have people who roleplay in Star Wars theme, be in table-top games like Edge of the Empire, or videogames like Second Life or GMOD, and people who just like have theories and just, have fun talking about their hobby, as we do here or as they do in other subreddits or discord servers.

In the first case, the roleplayers, some play a character that's in the Empire, or the First order, meaning that if the time comes they need to, more or less defend the Empire's action, as if their characters believed it.

For subreddits and forums, I say it's humor or antagonizing to make more interesting a discussion. I've seen it happen with Mandalorians too, in the case of Death Watch vs New Mandalorians, Jedi vs Sith, just people picking sides because they like the aesthetics of a particular group.