[BoorishBears]

If I had a dollar for every time I saw something either overtly racist or inappropriate, or just plain braindead on the new front page that wouldn’t have shown up before I’d have several. It went from the “front page of (what’s popular on) the internet” to “front page of Reddit”. The only problem is below the surface Reddit has a lot of racist and inappropriate content. That’s why I rarely go anywhere but a few isolated development subreddits

[narrowrail]

After you made this comment, a whole discussion[0] ensued regarding this topic. Looking at the front page of Reddit is like refusing to use kill files on usenet or /ignore on IRC "because I want to see what 'they' are saying."

The short of it, like many similar platforms from the past, is that Reddit is highly customizable if the user chooses that route (not to mention Reddit Enhancement Suite).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14351010

[BoorishBears]

Except before they changed the front page it wasn't like that at all.

The fact is "raw" Reddit is nothing to write home about and the previous front page worked around that with default subs.

I have no idea how it makes sense from a user conversion perspective, since new visitors essentially see the crappiest sides of Reddit before they even make an account to then go and learn how to filter it. I know personally if the first time I visited Reddit I saw what I usually see on the front page these days I probably would stay accountless