> It resulted in rampant child pornography, doxxing, death threats, gory violence etc. It epitomised the worst of humanity.
It resulted in reddit. That style of moderation is how reddit became reddit; so it should also get credit for whatever you think is good about reddit. The new (half-decade old) reddit moderation regime was a new venture that was hoping to retain users who were initially attracted by the old moderation regime.
My Reddit account is 16 years old. I was there in the very early days of the site well before the Digg invasion and well before it gained widespread popularity.
It was never because it allowed anything. It was because it was a much more accessible version of Slashdot. And it was because Digg did their redesign and it ended up with a critical mass of users. Then they started opening up the subreddits and it exploded from there.
The fact that Reddit is growing without that content shows that it wasn't that important to begin with.
It resulted in reddit. That style of moderation is how reddit became reddit; so it should also get credit for whatever you think is good about reddit. The new (half-decade old) reddit moderation regime was a new venture that was hoping to retain users who were initially attracted by the old moderation regime.