Slashdot got bought by a (((company))) linked to porn.

The reason these companies buy news/comment sites as slashdot is to command and manage the narratives.

Something bad about my companies? Downvote 10x. shadowban.

Lets make that product feature in popular..

Thus the sites dwindle and loose the reputation.

There would not be a site with news or popular that can have free discussion or "fairness". That would be too dangerous for a lower/middle class to start realizing they are being milked and will not have any social security.

PS. I use the ((())) as a hack on elisp to cancel threads. The more I use ((())) with a pronoun inside more chances the thread will be cancelled. I think PG loved lisp too much..