Meet the New Reddit Boss, Worse Than the Old Reddit Boss
by Allum Bokhari 15 Jul 2015
Ellen Pao has resigned
as CEO of Reddit following the worst set of
user and moderator revolts in the site’s history, but Redditors
who hoped her departure marked the end of threats to free speech on
the site are likely to be disappointed.
In fact, judging by the remarks of her successor, Reddit
co-founder Steve Huffman, the threat level should probably be turned up a
notch.
Pao confined her censorship only to communities deemed to be
engaged in harassment, i.e directly targeting other internet users for abuse.
Her announcement was
worded in a language reminiscent of college safe spaces, and was
followed by a comment to NPR that
Reddit was not a “completely free speech zone”.
It was at this point that the meme of “Chairman Pao,”
intended to portray the CEO as authoritarian, began to gather steam.
But Huffman wants to go far beyond Pao’s policy, promising
the site’s users that he will establish a Reddit-wide content policy aimed
at tackling “reprehensible” communities on the site. If the subjective measure
of “reprehensible” is met, a community and all its content can be banned.
In a post yesterday
evening, Huffman said:
There has been a lot of discussion lately —on reddit, in
the news, and here internally— about reddit’s policy on the more offensive and
obscene content on our platform. Our top priority at reddit is to develop a
comprehensive Content Policy and the tools to enforce it.
The overwhelming majority of content on reddit comes from
wonderful, creative, funny, smart, and silly communities. That is what makes
reddit great. There is also a dark side, communities whose purpose is
reprehensible, and we don’t have any obligation to support them. And we also
believe that some communities currently on the platform should not be here at
all.
Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of
free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion
can happen: These are very complicated issues, and we are putting a lot of
thought into it. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for quite some time.
We haven’t had the tools to enforce policy, but now we’re building those tools
and reevaluating our policy.
Huffman’s insistence that he and co-founder Alexis Ohanian
did not create Reddit as a “bastion of free speech” is already causing him
some embarrassment. The top-voted comment underneath his
announcement links to a Forbes article from
2012 in which Ohanian says Reddit is a “bastion of free speech on the
World Wide Web”.
Huffman is planning a Q&A with his users later today —
but judging by the response to his original post, he’s going to get some
tough questions about where Reddit really stands on free speech.
A big part of Huffman’s problem comes in the form of ex-CEO
Yishan Wong. A friend of Ellen Pao who personally pushed for her to succeed him
when he stepped down last year, Wong has been releasing a string of tell-all
posts over the past few days about the motivations of the Reddit board.
According to Wong, not only was Pao framed for the
sacking of Victoria Taylor, but she was also fighting off pressure from the
Reddit board to enforce tighter content restrictions across Reddit — the same
content restrictions now being considered by Huffman.
“On at least two separate occasions, the board pressed
[Pao] to outright ban ALL the hate subreddits in a sweeping purge” Wong wrote. “She
resisted, knowing the community, claiming it would be a shitshow… Ellen was
more or less inclined to continue upholding my free-speech policies.”
Furthermore, Wong alleged that Huffman was far more willing
to ban controversial Reddit communities than either himself or Pao. According
to Wong, Huffman once told him that when he was CEO, he would ban offensive
content “right away.”
There’s a possibility that Wong is just causing trouble — he
describes himself
as a personal friend of Ellen Pao, and he is clearly angry with the way she has
been treated by the Reddit board of directors. He recently described
the failure to explain Pao was not responsible for the sacking of
Victoria Taylor — the incident that sparked the second ‘Reddit Revolt’ — as an
“incredibly shitty thing to do.”
But enterprising Reddit users have unearthed evidence that
points to the truth of Wong’s assessment of Steve Huffman. Posts from 2008 and 2010
show him banning users that engage in “hate speech” on the spot and
editing offensive usernames.
Wong’s comments have now put Huffman in a difficult
situation. If he presses ahead with his content policy and bans “reprehensible
communities” on Reddit, he will be confirming Wong’s prediction that Pao’s
departure heralds even more censorship on the site, and is likely to face
another user revolt. Competitors like Voat.co would be
wise to prepare their server capacity.
Ellen Pao
Ellen
Pao is married to Alphonse Fletcher
Jr., was an interim CEO for Reddit,
a corporate attorney for Cravath, Swaine
& Moore, a partner; the sued Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, and a director at the Apollo Alliance.
Note: The Man at the Center
of a Dispute at the Dakota
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY and PETER LATTMANFEB. 25, 2011
But in recent months, Mr.
Fletcher’s 2,600-square-foot, three-bedroom apartment has largely been silent.
And Mr. Fletcher is engaging in one of the ugliest co-op battles in the world
of Manhattan real estate. This month, Mr. Fletcher, 45, sued the co-op board,
which he once led, charging it with racial discrimination because he was not
allowed to buy a neighboring apartment, and accusing it of discriminating
against other residents and applicants, too, including the singer Roberta
Flack.
Alphonse
Fletcher Jr. is married to Ellen Pao,
an apartment owner at The Dakota, and
a director at the Center for Advanced
Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
Henry Louis
Gates Jr. is a director at the Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a Harvard University professor, a director at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund,
and an Oak Bluffs (MA) homeowner.
Harvard Professor Jailed;
Officer Is Accused of Bias
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: July 20, 2009
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, the NPR, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sundance Institute, the Aspen
Institute (think tank), the International
Rescue Committee, and the Climate
Reality Project.
George
Soros was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society, and a benefactor for the NPR.
Frederick
A.O. Schwarz Jr. is a senior director at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, the chairman emeritus
for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, and a senior counsel at Cravath,
Swaine & Moore.
Robert
Redford is a trustee at the Natural
Resources Defense Council, the founder & president of the Sundance Institute, and was a director
at the Apollo Alliance.
Adebayo O.
Ogunlesi was an attorney at Cravath,
Swaine & Moore, and is a director at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund.
Tonya Lewis Lee
is a director at the NAACP Legal Defense
& Educational Fund, and married to Spike
Lee.
Spike Lee pays up for wrong-address tweet in Trayvon
Martin
March 30, 2012 | 4:57
pm
Spike
Lee is married to Tonya Lewis Lee,
and is an Oak Bluffs (MA) homeowner.
Vernon E. Jordan
Jr. is an Oak Bluffs (MA)
homeowner, a senior director at the NAACP
Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Valerie
B. Jarrett’s great uncle, a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg
(think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Valerie B. Jarrett
is Vernon E. Jordan Jr’s great niece, the senior
adviser for the Barack Obama
administration, and a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Commercial Club of
Chicago, Members Directory A-Z (Past Research)
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
R.
Eden Martin is the president of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP.
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Michelle
Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Sidley Austin
LLP was the lobby firm for the St.
Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Antonio Banderas
was a spokesperson for the St. Jude
Children's Research Hospital, and turned down by The Dakota co-op board.
Newton
N. Minow is a senior counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP, and a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Rahm
I. Emanuel is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, the Chicago (IL) mayor,
Ari Emanuel’s brother, and was the
White House chief of staff for the Barack
Obama administration.
Ari
Emanuel is Rahm I.
Emanuel’s brother, and the co-CEO & director for William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.
Ray
Romano is a William Morris Endeavor
Entertainment client, and was the spokesperson for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
James S.
Crown is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and a trustee
at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Lester Crown
is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and was a lifetime
trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Stephen L. Carter
is a trustee at the Aspen Institute
(think tank), and an Oak Bluffs (MA)
homeowner.
Michael K. Powell
is a trustee at the Aspen Institute
(think tank), and Colin L. Powell’s
son.
L.
John Doerr is a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Colin
L. Powell is Michael K. Powell’s
father, an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, and a strategic adviser at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Ellen
Pao was a partner; the sued Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, an interim CEO for Reddit, a corporate attorney for Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a director at the Apollo Alliance, and is married to Alphonse Fletcher Jr.
Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers was an investor in Twitter Inc., and a donor for The
Climate Project.
The Climate
Project is a merged organization with the Climate Reality Project.
Albert
A. Gore Jr. was a donor for The
Climate Project, is the chairman for the Climate Reality Project, and a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
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