The Reddit Implosion

[Andara Bledin]

And, in news that I didn't expect this soon, Pao has stepped down as Reddit CEO.

What I find interesting is that she is quoted as saying:

They had a more aggressive view than I did.

If that's accurate, then she was actually reducing the impact of the changes going on at Reddit, not instigating them.

I expect zero walkback from many of the people bashing her, though, particularly since Alexis Ohanian (founder, former CEO, and kn0thing on Reddit) actually posted the comment "Popcorn tastes good" in response to the original issue, and the silence outside of Reddit is deafening. You'd think, if it were really about how badly Reddit was handling things, that would have been a rallying cry against what they've been up to, but no, it's all about how Pao is handling things, as if she were a malevolent overlord with absolute power over the site. >_>

Oh, yeah, and Ohanian is taking over the CEO spot.

[Ginger Tea]

Some of the posts about her gave me the impression she was the one behind the keyboard for a fair few AMA's even if she was relaying info to and from just like a relay service would.

I know it's safer to have someone else handle your social media for you, but I do know of a few celeb redditors who seem to be behind the keyboard and say things publicists would loose their jobs over putting words into celeb mouths.

The whole having to be in NY for the AMA seems over kill just to prove that the one typing is the celeb and not some intern or publicist, but saying that, having a pic of you holding your social media experts reddit user name isn't proof.

The guy 'stranded' finding out she was fired would probably think "I spent $X to get here when I could have been doing this in my bathrobe at home."

All because you needed someone to vet that they were typing and not a 3rd party.

I sure hope they had other business in the Big Apple that weekend cos I would not be happy flying out to do something I could do at home, even more so to find it cancelled.

I've avoided AMA's as they are always over by the time I find out about them (not that I care enough about what people do off the silver screen) and I am not inclined to stay up late to participate live.

But I've read too many accounts of people feeling someone else wrote the answers especially when they avoid highly upvoted comments and go for joke posts like "1 horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?"

EDIT:
I was going to add this as a PS but forgot then saw it posted after I started mine.

Aye she's the scape goat and boogeyman of Reddit, it doesn't matter who signed off on the idea before she took the helm, she has and will continue to take the flack.
I am expecting a gazillion "Ding dong the witch is dead" posts to end up on /r/all.

But others have said that they knew she was not going to stay (interim being a clue) and that all the "hatchet man" stuff would be done 'in her name' so that whomever steps up next no matter how vile, would be seen as the golden saviour. And they expect one or two token bad calls to be reverted as they were only made to set up the next person to look good and make peace by reinstating it.

[Gravekeeper]

Oh, yeah, and Ohanian is taking over the CEO spot.

And it turns out Ohanian is the one who fired Victoria from the AMA's and is the one that wanted to change how they worked ( aka commercialized ) and yet that was all allowed to fall on Pao as the scapegoat.

She was put up as a sacrificial lamb for this entire thing and most of the bile thrown at her is still solely because she has a vagina. The pitchfork mob didn't really kick off on her till she lost that sexual discrimination lawsuit against her former employer. Apparently that was all the proof Reddit needed that she was a unhinged fascist nazi feminist who hates men and also the leader of North Korea. ( None of that is a joke btw. Those are actual things hurled at her. >.> )

In her time at reddit she the only things she really did were nixed salary negotiation because it was unfairly benefiting male hires and oversaw the roll out of Reddit's first harassment policies ( with predictable results such as /r/EllenPaoIsACunt among others )

It was Ohanian that fucked up the AMA and fired Victoria but he was quite content to let all of that fall right on Pao. That would also explain why Pao didn't seem to know wtf was going on with the AMA's as it was not her doing.

So Reddit's board of assholes basically gets to have its cake and eat it too. They fucked up royally but were able to lay it all on Pao and the seething pack of Redditers that were after Pao are now celebrating that they successfully burned the witch. Completely oblivious to the fact all they did was get rid of the scapegoat. Nothing has actually changed within Reddit's management. -.-

[Gravekeeper]

Yikes, the former CEO ( Yishan Wong )is going after Ohanian:

I’m glad redditors have started to piece together all of this. Here’s the only thing you’re missing:

It travels upstream, except when it comes from the CEO’s boss.

Alexis wasn’t some employee reporting to Pao, he was the Executive Chairman of the Board, i.e. Pao’s boss. He had different ideas for AMAs, he didn’t like Victoria’s role, and decided to fire her. Pao wasn’t able to do anything about it. In this case it shouldn’t have traveled upstream to her, it came from above her.

Then when the hate-train started up against Pao, Alexis should have been out front and center saying very clearly “Ellen Pao did not make this decision, I did.” Instead, he just sat back and let her take the heat. That’s a stunning lack of leadership and an incredibly shitty thing to do.

I actually asked that he be on the board when I joined; I used to respect Alexis Ohanian. After this, not quite so much.

[Andara Bledin]

Wait, you mean Pao isn't the evil overlord that so many people are claiming and she was set up to be the fall guy for a decision that would have been known to be incredibly unpopular?

Who ever could have guessed?

[Gravekeeper]

Now the chief engineer has quit and likewise says Pao was set up to be a scapegoat. >.>

Said engineer also said:

“I feel like there are going be some big bumps on the road ahead for Reddit,” Blount said. “Along the way, there are some very aggressive implied promises being made to the community — in comments to mods, quotes from board members — and they’re going have some pretty big challenges in meeting those implied promises.”

These “implied promises” include improvements to tools to help subreddit moderators and addressing harassing comments and content.

At this rate, Reddit will have its own TLC reality show by September. -.-

[Hyena Dandy]

In an ironic twist, it seems that Ellen Pao was one of the few people at Reddit actually advocating to keep around the idiots.

[Andara Bledin]

Indeed.

Apparently, she wanted to highlight the cream and get it to rise to the top of the visibility spectrum while allowing the shit that didn't cross over into criminal territory continue to fester in the dark underbelly in the interests of keeping as many channels open for as many people as possible.

Some of the people who were calling loudest for her ouster are likely the ones who are going to be hit the hardest by her departure.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, this is more reasonable than I was expecting, to be honest.

Let's Talk Content AMA by spez

Let's see if they can implement it and make it actually mean something.