I think your second paragraph might be jumping the gun a bit but yes in my experience the Reddit algorithm also highlights the worst of humans.

Also the "general" Reddit opinion on topics tends to skew super pseudo-intellectual and shortsighted.

One remarkable thing here is the difference between comments and up-votes. It's not unusual to see a post trending where the top comment directly undermines the idea expressed in the post. Either by pointing out it's falsehoods or logical inconsistencies.