That's why I've always thought that upvotes/downvotes in the comment section are dumb. They don't encourage people to think for themselves, instead, they encourage them to do "what everyone else does" to avoid feeling different, or losing karma. The fact that anonymous comments don't exist only enforces this idea.

4chan (or any other chan, really) has a remarkably harsh community, but you're much more likely to find honest opinions there. In some aspects it's better than Reddit if you're looking for genuine discussion. You have to stay away from the mainstream boards, but the same happens here so it's not really an exception. Either way, its structure enforces you to form your own opinion as you read the comments, because there's no indicator of what the most popular one is.