That confirms the actions of what Spez usually does. He remains silent on the rampant abusive subreddits UNTIL someone publishes a news article about it, then he steps in with the whole "We're dedicating ourselves to stepping up regulating these harmful subreddits, and other blanket PR statements". Like most, I enjoy the hobby specific subs(tech related for me) like sysadmin, networking, netsec, etc. Those communities are often very closely monitored by moderators who don't want off topic things floating in. I do browse the news sections everyday but it's normally not terrible. Most people have caught on now to the bot comment structure so those accounts get their comments downvoted to invisibility.
I think the biggest problem is that Reddit has created a poison with two perfect ingredients. 1) Having little to no moderation on abusive/illegal topics due to fear of PR backlash. 2) Creating a platform that allows people all over the world the communicate.
Mix those together and suddenly you have extremists, criminals, and just outright mentally sick people joining together to create massive communities where that behavior and mentality is allowed to prosper. When insane people have insane views, they typically have them amongst themselves or in a very small groups. Their not going to go around telling the town about their views and intentions, so it can be hard to find others to connect with that are in the same boat. That isolation I think tends to lead to towards those ideologies to fizzle out, or continue in private but without the backing to do any harm. When you suddenly have hundreds/thousands of these small groups of insane people banding together in a place where they can share their views publicly with anonymity, things get out of hand.
Take Incels for example, which is a now banned sub that was made up of generally unappealing men would very likely never experience intimacy with a female due to their own shortcomings. It's one thing for a guy to think in a brief moment "I really want to do X with a female, maybe I should just do it forcefully". That's just a personal thought and likely to fizzle out because it has no backing. Now when you have an entire echo chamber of like minded individuals saying things like that, now it's leading to encouragement and active planning of those illegal actions. All because Reddit refuses to step in.
Reddit truly doesn't offer much in terms of positives. Sure the easy going, user friendly, rolling forum type setup makes it easy for people to discuss hobbies and interests. However, forums have been doing just that since the internet began. Sure you can get news, cooking recipes, tech help, etc in a fast, easy going manner but you can get all of those from plenty of other sources too.
Think of it like this: In many areas down south in the US, militant groups are living in the forests. Generally they are white extremist, pro gun nuts who have small communities being self sufficient in the deep woods. These groups hate government interference and usually have a shoot on site policy. By themselves, these groups are nothing. Even the ones who threaten the public, pretty much never do anything. Now what if these groups had a way to find and communicate with each other in as efficient a manner as Reddit provides? Now you go from harmless threats to a potential, real world problem that could lead to violence and destruction since many groups would now have banded together.