Sites like these mitigate some of the problems with news but they make others worse. A good comment thread can provide a lot of valuable background and context,

Sites like these mitigate some of the problems with news but they make others worse. A good comment thread can provide a lot of valuable background and context, for example. On the other hand, the bias towards unimportant but attention-grabbing stories is not especially improved by making editorial decisions with a literal popularity contest.