For non-political topics, reddit can be great. It’s the only place I can think of that has small communities for any niche interests one might have. It’s really helpful in that regard. For anything even slightly political, though, it seems to be pretty toxic. I don’t mean just the right, or just the left, I mean all of it. Things seem to inevitably move in the direction of shitty little virtual fiefdoms ruled by whichever ideologues are willing to spend the most time engaging in petty power grabs, e.g. sockpuppets, brigades, mass shitposting, etc. It sounds pretty boring to me, but I guess a feedback loop that rewards the politics of emotion can be pretty addictive.
edit: I should add, this seems to happen cyclically with periods of relative calm. This probably has to do with the fact that being a responsible moderator is a full time job that very few people are willing to do for years on end without pay.
