I was on Digg, and I switched to Reddit prior to the Digg exodus. So it's been a while, at least 15 years that I've been there.<p>I think the quality of discussion on these sites has definitely gotten worse, but it's always been pretty bad. Digg people would post absolutely idiotic shit, even by today's standards. The thing that sticks out to me is something that I don't even think is appropriate to mention here, but I want to mention it because I think it illustrates how insanely poor the level of discussion was on these older forums -- there was an ASCII art meme that was reposted in seemingly every thread -- pedobear, a bear that wanted to molest children. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedobear" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedobear</a>. Hilarious (sarcasm)....<p>I switched to Reddit because it did not have people posting this crap in every thread. It was refreshing to have a forum where people weren't spamming idiotic ascii memes but actually discussing things.<p>But even so, it's all relative. At one point probably near 2009 or 2010, I was struck by the amount of unhinged comments where people called for outright revolution and violence against the US government / capitalistic systems. I stopped sometime after reaching 100 count in a week or two. I hope it goes without saying, but any violent overthrow of the current status quo is not going to be replaced with something better. It's going to have end up in an authoritarian dystopian nightmare.<p>At least back then though I felt like it was actual people being unhinged. Now I don't think you can use Reddit as a barometer for the public opinion on anything. I simply think the amount of fake shills and accounts are too high. Reddit got its start by faking comments, but there was definitely a peak in the ratio of genuine to fake comments, and we're in my estimation doing very very bad on that benchmark nowadays. This became evident on large subreddits like r/politics back in 2016, where on a dime it was like a button was pressed in a machine and the shape and color of comments all change in unison. The site is gamed to hell and back.<p>I like Discord nowadays because I can be sure I'm interacting with a real human, though how long this will stay true I don't know. The internet desperately needs a system in place which can distinguish between genuine human beings and bots. I think much of the social issues we have nowadays stems from how bad actors are manipulating what people see online, and confusing people on where the consensus actually is. Various actors are waging psychological warfare on the public, and the public does not even seem to acknowledge it, even when it is blatantly obvious (as in the example of something like Tik Tok).