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The Fall Of The House Of [Reddit]
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Okay, that's a bit of an overdramatic thread title, Hedgie.
Then you haven't been watching what's been happening over at Reddit.
What do you mean? Former CEO Ellen Pao fired a popular moderator, the admins revolted, there was a petition to remove her, she resigned. Business as usual.
Well, that's what we thought. Then the dirty laundry started coming out.
Like what?
Well, said popular moderator, Victoria Taylor? Turns out she wasn't fired by Pao, but by founder and board head Alexis Ohanian. Who has been more than happy to let Pao take the blame. And since this has come out, there has been a surprising lack of antagonism towards Mr. Ohanian - no vitriolic rants, threats, sexualized pictures.
Okay, but what about the admin revolt? Most of the major subreddits shuttered themselves, after all.
Again, it comes down to why Taylor and Pao were canned...
She resigned, right?
Yeah, at that level, that sort of resignation has "fired" written all over it.
Anyways, they were canned because they were opposed to the direction the board wanted to go with the Ask Me Anything subreddit and with growth and monetization in general. Honestly, it's looking more and more like Pao was put on a glass cliff, especially after Reddit's chief engineer quit.
Glass cliff?
It's a common practice - hire a minority CEO to make needed but unpopular decisions, setting them up to take the blame and the fall, allowing a more "proper" candidate to assume the role after the flames have died down. And considering Reddit, Pao made for an especially effective lightning rod.
It can't be that bad.
This was, for a good while, the most upvoted comment in response to her resignation notice:
Which really illustrates the problem. But ironically, the racists, homophobes, and misogynists may have cut their own throat here. Because apparently, she was one of the few people protecting the less savory subreddits. And with how they attacked and basically bullied her out of Reddit, they gave the new CEO license to drop the hammer on them.
But at this point, I doubt it really matters.
Why?
Because Reddit's problems run deeper. They have a massive labor cost issue, and to make the changes needed, well...something's got to give. And the dark underbelly of Reddit's not going to go without a fight.
This doesn't sound good. Any more I can read about it?
This is a pretty good overview of the matter, and has more links. Arthur Chu is insightful as usual as well. And this piece explains why these subreddits are so corrosive.
Then you haven't been watching what's been happening over at Reddit.
What do you mean? Former CEO Ellen Pao fired a popular moderator, the admins revolted, there was a petition to remove her, she resigned. Business as usual.
Well, that's what we thought. Then the dirty laundry started coming out.
Like what?
Well, said popular moderator, Victoria Taylor? Turns out she wasn't fired by Pao, but by founder and board head Alexis Ohanian. Who has been more than happy to let Pao take the blame. And since this has come out, there has been a surprising lack of antagonism towards Mr. Ohanian - no vitriolic rants, threats, sexualized pictures.
Okay, but what about the admin revolt? Most of the major subreddits shuttered themselves, after all.
Again, it comes down to why Taylor and Pao were canned...
She resigned, right?
Yeah, at that level, that sort of resignation has "fired" written all over it.
Anyways, they were canned because they were opposed to the direction the board wanted to go with the Ask Me Anything subreddit and with growth and monetization in general. Honestly, it's looking more and more like Pao was put on a glass cliff, especially after Reddit's chief engineer quit.
Glass cliff?
It's a common practice - hire a minority CEO to make needed but unpopular decisions, setting them up to take the blame and the fall, allowing a more "proper" candidate to assume the role after the flames have died down. And considering Reddit, Pao made for an especially effective lightning rod.
It can't be that bad.
This was, for a good while, the most upvoted comment in response to her resignation notice:
Which really illustrates the problem. But ironically, the racists, homophobes, and misogynists may have cut their own throat here. Because apparently, she was one of the few people protecting the less savory subreddits. And with how they attacked and basically bullied her out of Reddit, they gave the new CEO license to drop the hammer on them.
But at this point, I doubt it really matters.
Why?
Because Reddit's problems run deeper. They have a massive labor cost issue, and to make the changes needed, well...something's got to give. And the dark underbelly of Reddit's not going to go without a fight.
This doesn't sound good. Any more I can read about it?
This is a pretty good overview of the matter, and has more links. Arthur Chu is insightful as usual as well. And this piece explains why these subreddits are so corrosive.
XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
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And yet threads about her were routinely filled with racist and misogynist comments and memes. Not to mention that Ohanian has not been subjected to the same sort of abuse even though it has come to light that he was responsible for Taylor's firing.
At a certain point, even if you yourself have legitimate grievances, you need to realize you're giving cover to bigots.
No details have been given but rumors range from "she didn't want to move" to "she didn't want to participate in monetized AMAs" to "she did something bad enough to warrant an immediate dismissal but they didn't bother publicly stating it."
From what I read, she was opposed to some of the ways they wanted to monetize AMA.
What's Nbsp talking about?
What AngelHedgie never mentions is that most people agree Ellen Pao was a terrible CEO, even before the whole Victoria Taylor incident. That incident was only the straw that broke the camel's back and finally got people to make a petition to have Ellen dismissed from her position as CEO. The resulting pressure resulted in her "resignation".
Even though it was later revealed that Alexis Ohanian was responsible for Victoria's departure, it does not mean that Ellen Pao leaving was a bad thing, or that she had to be directly responsible for Victoria being fired in order for her "resignation" to be justified.
Why was Ellen Pao such a bad CEO?
Ellen's job was to grow Reddit, instead she was more interested in her "social justice" campaigns instead of actually improving the company. She was criticized for closing down subreddits arbitrarily and threatened the freedom of speech that people come to Reddit for. She demonstrated no clear plan or direction as would be expected of any CEO running a huge company.
She implemented stupid company policies like "no salary negotiations", on the basis that a woman's image suffers if she tries to negotiate, therefore no one should have to negotiate their salary! This pretty much means the top talent that knows what they're worth would be driven away from Reddit.
What about all the sexism?
Sexist comments were made, as you could expect on the internet. However, it is not sexist to say a female CEO did a shit job. Don't get it twisted.
I'm sure if she was a man, things would be different.
Yes, there might be less sexist comments, but just because she's a woman doesn't mean she's exempt from criticism about her job performance. Reddit is a community that a lot of people care about and that many have invested a lot of money into, it's the responsibility for the CEO to respect that.
Whatever, there's so many diversity problems in the tech industry, this doesn't help.
There's other ways to solve those problems, it's not the end of the world, and it doesn't mean a CEO should suddenly act like a SJW, which is all that Ellen was really.
Generally the highest rated comments in non Pao hate subreddits pointed out her history of lawsuits related to gender discrimination (that she lost) and accused her of sheltering SRS and fat people, but racist commentry didn't seem to be anywhere but the bottom.
I've met Ohanian once before, if I ever meet him again and we still don't know I'll try to find out.
YO LET'S SAY IT ALL TOGETHER
FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS THE INABILITY OF GOVERNMENT TO REGULATE WHAT SOMEONE SAYS
A PRIVATELY RUN COMPANY DECIDING WHAT THEY WANT ON THEIR PRIVATELY RUN FORUMS DOES NOT IN ANY WAY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH "FREEDOM OF SPEECH"
Or seriously have we not figured that out at this point. What is this, fucking ethics in journalism all over again
This wasn't the first time Reddit has shut down subreddits that could potentially make it look bad in the public eye. I'd wager the decision had virtually nothing to do with any concept of "social justice".
So because some people who opposed her were bigots, people with legitimate grievances shouldn't say anything? That's bad logic. Pao, as @Nbsp already covered, was awful. She tried to simultaneously profit and drive Reddit into the ground under the guise of social justice and her own status as a minority. Aside from just being a bad CEO, she did serious harm to people who actually care about social issues.
There are women who do the same thing with feminism and the female worldview. Ellen Pao was kind of like that.
This is true but some people believe it's better if forums exist that allow a significant degree of freedom of speech. Considering reddit administration had claimed Reddit as a bastion of free speech, it's not unreasonable for some people to be invested in the idea Reddit supports free speech on Reddit.
The last major shutdowns were for potentially illegal content getting press coverage. These shutdowns were for certain subreddits directly harassing Imgur staff, which Reddit relies on. It's almost certainly 50% money, 50% ideology.
You don't have to be a government to have "Freedom of Speech" as a core value. This is one of the things that has always made Reddit great, that people can say what they like, and yes there will be filth, but many people wouldn't have it any other way.
If you just have robots patrolling forums and reading every word you say waiting for you to slip up or raise a ruckus so they can throw you in a forum jail, things get a little dystopian.
I also know how various branches of the Misogynist Rights Movement like to accuse feminists in the same way.
It's almost as if anytime an actual minority group begins to speak out against their treatment by the (mostly white and male) power structure, they get attacked by rabid defenders of that power structure.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
And many people are saying "if 'defending free speech' means having to share space with people who think I'm subhuman, then fuck that noise". Not to mention that advertisers are more than a little leery of putting ads on a place that has a whole section devoted to how to rape women (NSFW due to disturbing images).
Reddit in the exact same bullet point where they mention freedom of expression also mention being a safe space. These forums don't even try to brand themselves as a safe space.
By the way, here's the first major point in Reddit's values:
But that still has nothing to do with the fact that a grand total of zero people had their freedom of expression denied. None. Nada. Zilch. Pretending this is a campaign about free speech is a terrible argument, and it's not a coincidence that I brought up GamerGate, which also, when confronted with the fact that it was basically just an excuse for people to be racist and misogynist, hid behind a "BUT OUR FREE SPEECH" banner like it was actually a thing
So you're saying that no minority would ever exploit their position as a minority for their own personal gain? Right.
Care to explain how she was exploiting her position? (And your example of a "no salary negotiations" policy is preatty weak sauce - it's well documented how the way women are socialized in our culture causes them to be hurt by salary negotiations.)
what incredible gain she found for herself, getting fired and having people shit talk her online.
sort of like al sharpton who lots of people write off as only doing his thing for personal gain when he constantly talks about teh same issues... if pressing issues gets you attention that doesn't mean you did it for attention
it's awesome that you posted here because I wasn't sure I could buy into angelhedgie's view but you've pretty much cemented that the opposing side here is gross as fuck
edit - also, no that's not what he said.
Further, I very rarely see "my free speech" on Reddit; the top comments only mention it when mentioning what Reddit admins themselves have said, or talk about why certain subs are banned and others not. I think that "free speech" is generally an awful argument but it is kind of a strawman here.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I mean actual credible alternatives that have the server infrastructure to handle an amount of traffic that is more than a rounding error to Reddit. And no, some kickstarter or donation campaign is not even remotely on that scale. We are talking literally several orders of magnitude more than those anti-Sarkeesian-kickstarter shitheels who have been having a meltdown recently were able to scam off gullible bigots.
People who can't make actual arguments like to point at bad analogies like what happened to Digg or MySpace but in those cases - besides all the other problems with the analogy - there were credible, funded competitors already in place.
http://www.reddit.com/about/values/
Here, I'll highlight the specific sentence
Here, I'll give the full goddamn bolded point:
Hey look, Freedom of expression is in the same point as safe space.
There is no need to be rude about it. If you read the current AMA linked in the OP, the current reddit CEO talks around previously calling reddit a bastion of free speech and claims that it is impossible to create a safe space online.
I would generally trust the actions and words of the administration over the values page. I think the issue is more complicated than a bunch of bigots shouting "my free speech," if only because it's clear that everybody involved is at least somewhat shitty.
Ellen Pao is a millionare and wanted to make millions more because of trumped up sexism charges that were later dismissed. This isn't a case of a minority fighting for a righteous cause, it's pure greed. Automatically believing any feminist or minority cause must be right and anyone who attacks it is evil is an incredibly dangerous road to go down. It practically encourages people to think they don't need to be informed. Context is what's most important, without it you just get sanctimonious nonsense.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
They are wrong on both counts.
I think it is bizarre how people cannot see how bigotry chills speech.
0) Reddit begins with the idea of being a platform for speech on the web, with a sort of marketplace of ideas approach. Each subreddit is regulated by whoever starts it, not directly affiliated with reddit, and if you don't like what's going on in one, you form another.
Predictably, this leads to some truly heinous shit going down on the site and since mods aren't directly affiliated with the company itself, there's no direct way for them to regulate it. And they don't seem to want to any way.
At the same time, the tools for modding and admin are apparently pretty shitty overall and this combined with parts of reddit being shitlords (as with any largely unregulated community) makes administration a pain in the ass.
1) Our story begins, not with the later firing as it first seemed, but with closing of r/fatpeoplehate, a subreddit who's purpose I'm sure you can guess at. Following this, some truly nasty shit starts flying the way of CEO Ellen Pao.
2) Later, Victoria Taylor, the person basically responsible for the site's AMAs is fired. While blamed on Pao, it later turns out this was done by Ohanian founder and "executive chairman". Reasons for this are unclear, but theories include she wouldn't move to SF from NY or that she opposed the commercialization of AMAs or a few others. Regardless, Pao is blamed and the vitriol intensifies.
3) Eventually there is a blackout by many of the mods of subreddits. Though this seemingly is more related to anger at the shittiness of the admin tools they have access to and Taylor was apparently the only person from the company itself helping them with that stuff.
4) After all this shit starts hitting the fan, Pao steps down.
That seems to be the basics of what went down.
And what is any of this based on?
Can Reddit really be wrong on the philosophy of Reddit? Yes, but that also makes it pretty easy for users to be wrong as well, which is my point. A lot of users (bigoted or not) might have some investment in the idea of Reddit as a platform that supports some ideal of "free speech" even if the specific term only has meaning in a governmental sense.
The point is she didn't do what she was supposed to do.
This is actually what makes it so easy for a minority to abuse their position as a minority for personal gain. Anyone who denies that is naive.
Are you talking about the parts where he says stuff like: or maybe as a bastion of free speech?
Or maybe where as one of the parts of restricted speech on reddit he lists
Oh wait, one more
Taken from here, an AMA with the Reddit Administrator about their content and ideas about "freedom of speech".
The reason I'm so vitriolic towards "freedom of speech" as a defense is that it's 99% of the time the same thing as saying "but I have a black friend" or "Well I'm just saying" It's a shitty cover used by cowards who want to say hateful things and then are afraid of the repercussions of their actions.
I'm an artist. I know that it would be a super shitty thing if suddenly the government came in and told me that my art was banned, or that I was in jail because of my art. But I also have friends who I know don't understand my art, and them being completely un-receptive of my art doesn't mean that I'm being oppressed at all. It means that they don't like my art. And if companies don't want to hire me because of my art, then that doesn't mean my art is being oppressed at all, it means that my art doesn't fit with their company image or product.
It seems like she did exactly what she was supposed to do; make a useful scapegoat.
Then why are you here? Cause this "dystopia" you describe is this place. Cause this forum will 100% ban your ass at a moments notice for being a shitlord and without a single regret. Tube literally talks about this frequently in the thread where everyone got to ask him questions. Calling this forum dystopian is ridiculous.
"Freedom of Speech" as you are talking about it is not legal freedom of speech and the attempt to conflate the two via using the same words is deliberate obfuscation. This isn't about freedom of speech, this is about reddit believing that it only provides a platform and they aren't responsible for what's done with it. There is no way in which what doesn't happen on reddit anymore is about free speech.
That's why reddit has entire subreddits dedicated to racism, bigotry and other assorted unambiguously horrible shit. This is not something to be proud of.
And, to get back to the OP, this is one of the basic problems with reddit and why it has issues. It's why they couldn't keep racism out of Jesse Jackson's AMA. Pushing back against it, whatever the motive, is what started the racist hate-ball rolling against Pao.
Pride has nothing to do with it. You can say the same thing about the internet itself.