I've even people denying that Afghan meant Pashtun exclusively prior to the 20th century.

This is a highly discussed yet not necessarily proven claim.
Thing is, people concentrate on the wrong things creating unneccessary problems.
This never ending discussion is not benefiting afghans.

In my opinion mostly diaspora have those discussion and also mostly online. The pashtuns from afghanistan i know and pashtuns who were born here would be ashamed if they would talk about those topic in front of me and the other way around i would also never talk about those things. Its simply useless to do so.

We agree that we all have the same claim towards being afghan and afghanistan and thats it.
Also TikTok is full with the lowest afghans you can imagine. If you notice a lot of hate, change and block accounts till your algorithm leads you to healthy content.