They are best understood and perceived as concentric circles working out toward the average, uninformed, uninvolved person. The effects of what goes on with them do have legitimate impact that cannot be ignored; it is no secret these places have garned enough attention to be subject to shilling, bot armies, investigation by federal agencies, and the source of safe haven for drops of information. The same could be said about how Wikileaks "Is greatly overestimated.", but it was places as 4chan and parts of Reddit that made them impactful, especially the Silent Majority or the MAGA movement.

They are the reason people still talk about GamerGate, Seth Rich, the JFK files, PizzaGate, the Trump dossier, Uranium One, the DWS scandal, Awan Brothers, BernieBros, all of the Hollywood sexual assault and pedophilia, and so forth. They are agitators and aggregators of information and action, especially the aforementioned social engineering - "It's okay to be white." the best current example.

They are a means of leverage that was gravely underestimated before.