Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

Some comments on why from the mod: http://www.reddit.com/user/nallen

mega white knighting if I've ever seen it.

Jesse Jackson had an AMA that did not go very well. Several of the most upvoted questions were simply disrespectful. The Reverend's answers were mostly boilerplate and often unresponsive to the question. The AMA seems to have been part of some PR rollout -- Mother Jones had an article three days ago about Jackson taking on Silicon Valley. The event seems to have failed the rollout's objectives.

Not a great moment for anyone: The AMA didn't always feature the Reddit community at its best, but the Reverend didn't show at all well under the spotlight of Radical Transparency.

Given all that, the timing and speed of the admin's firing hardly seems coincidental. Reddit seems to have blown up a number of ongoing events, and upset an important chunk of its community, which hardly suggests that her firing relates to some long-term issue.

I can see why Reddit might feel the event wasn't handled well.

But it is also very plausible that Jackson and his camp were deeply embarrassed, and insisted that someone be punished for that. So plausible, in fact, that I think Reddit really should give some account that demonstrates that this is _not_ what happened -- or admit that it did.

It is very surprising that this whole thing hasn't gotten more coverage in the tech press.

I wonder if Reddit is big enough to survive these kinds of recent outcries [1], or if it's destined to go the way of digg, etc.

[1] Only a week or so ago there was a huge outcry about censorship, which resulted in a lot of negative personal information being posted about the current Reddit CEO. Now we have this.