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Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

nytimes.com

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Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#591

Post by bsder »

KVFinn wrote: post #511
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an occasional user of reddit, this whole ordeal has confirmed the reason why I prefer not to hang out in its forums. I have no idea whether Ellen was a capable CEO, but the vitriol which I kept seeing peripherally (through other news articles and here on HN) was absolutely appalling.

>As an occasional user of reddit, this whole ordeal has confirmed the reason why I prefer not to hang out in its forums. It's really been awful and hard to avoid. I saw more racism on reddit in a couple few weeks (while the police shootings were in the news) than I've seen in the rest of my life combined. That and the increasingly popular /fatpeoplehate and I was pretty close to never visiting even the small well-mod…

> I saw more racism on reddit in a couple few weeks (while the police shootings were in the news) than I've seen in the rest of my life combined.

Welcome to reality outside the Silicon Valley distortion bubble--Reddit's userbase is not confined to the Mandarins of technology.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#592

Post by zardeh »

austenallred wrote: post #218
mynameisvlad wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, proof? The fact that she's been actually active on the site under her own account shows that clearly she knows how to use the site, so that argument alone is moot. I don't know how you can prove she didn't like the users unless she straight up said that.

https://np.reddit.com/r/FaithInHumanity/comments/39ee4c/char... She tried to share a link to a private message. That's the equivalent of my mom emailing me and saying, "Here's the picture - c:\\user\desktop\pic.jpg" - it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how the site works. Then everyone who replied was shadowbanned and every post was deleted. So no, she literally didn't know how to use the site.

No, she intended to post something in an admin sub and didn't. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_ap...

And they've officially denied shadowbanning anyone in that thread.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#593

Post by colinbartlett »

danielweber wrote: post #466
city41 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It completely and totally dominated /r/all for days, even weeks. /r/all is an aggregate of the most popular posts for the entire site, so I disagree only a small subset were affected. Maybe in number of subreddits, but the subreddits that were affected are absolutely gigantic.

Most people are completely unaware of /r/all

Certainly not unaware just definitely not interested.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#594

Post by mc32 »

multinglets wrote: post #588
mc32 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if she was a bad leader or not. My big concern is this populist approach to firing people. Enough people don't like a company officer? Cobble a "movement" and generate enough controversy to force them to step down. I think unless they egregiously violate company policy or violate the law or do something which would bring damage to a company it should be up to the company to direct the fate of an officer.…

If she weren't a woman, I would be tempted to say it's almost . . . It's almost like she just sucked at her job and the public backlash and getting fired were both predictable consequences of that fact.

Let's say she sucked at her job. Let the org fire her. These actions were the result of thought that they needed to heed public opinion.

As if officers need to walk on eggshells. What should matter ate results rather than dictated by the winds of public opinion.

I wish the board, management, etc. in these situations would who resolve and say, no, sorry, this is our choice, we stand by it. But no, we see them capitulate to public opinion.

Sometimes that opinion does coincide with"the right thing to do" but let the company execute the right thing. Don't let the mob become your upper management.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#595

Post by vonklaus »

vacri wrote: post #536
vonklaus wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what do you think is an appropriate set of measures to curtail [people you don't like] on the internet? Do you believe the internet should be a safe space?

No, I don't think the internet should be sanitised. But at the same time, I find the MRA shrill talking-points to be of a pretty shallow depth, and, as a group, they're pretty vocally violent. In contrast, I find feminist talking-points to have a fair amount of depth to them. Those feminists who conduct themselves in the shrill manner that MRAs do are just as bad, but when you take those kinds of people away and look…

I found that quite rational and civil, which is more I can say for any other discussion I have ever seen about this subject matter.

> never post articles in their own right, only weaponised comments to win internet points.

On balance I think things are fairly equal, honestly women might be slightly better off. There is a very loud minority angrily decrying people who post pro-male articles and such, and the news and media are not interested in it unless it is to point out that he was a MRA killer from 4chan.

That being said, I have become apathetic to these tropic debates (women in tech, gamergate, feminism v antifeminsim, etc) and now just largely support free speech and freedom of expression. This has the potential to make many people upset, and a select few targets of extreme harassment. On balance, however I think it is the most powerful tool in our society.

Your civil comment was quite a nice departure from my regular observations, cheers.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#596

Post by zardeh »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #493
amyjess wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FPH was targeting individuals for harassment. The subreddit was filled with photographs that were either a) creepshots taken off the street without the subject's permission and b) friends-only Facebook posts shared with the public without the subject's permission (which is a violation of Facebook's TOS). Then, on top of that, they were harassing imgur staff members for enforcing their ToS. CoonTown, as disgusting as…

Sorry, I don't buy it. Was anything happening in FPH illegal? If not, then there's no rational basis for treating it any differently than any other hate-oriented subreddit. If there were in fact some legal concerns, then I stand corrected.

Reddits stated policy was to remove harassment (and harrassing subs). So fph harrassed users and broke that policy. Coontown, while also racist and imo worse, stays in its box, doesn't brigade, doesn't target specific people, and generally just says racist stuff about news articles and posts memes.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#597

Post by vehementi »

Jimmy wrote: post #589
morbius wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SRS sidebar makes it pretty clear that the whole SJW façade is exactly that: a façade. They obviously have legitimate complaints but hyperbolise everything to poke fun at it.

They don't accept the "it's just a joke" excuse from their targets, why should we accept it from them?

> targets

> we

> them

Gah.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#598

Post by brazzledazzle »

vehementi wrote: post #518
fredkbloggs wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly. Also, firing someone without some kind of plan for redistributing her duties is a Management 101 no-no. Ellen Pao failed as CEO of Reddit. That has nothing to do with the 1% or whatever of Reddit users who are racists and/or misogynists. That's just the real world; you have to get past the obnoxious idiots and focus on what matters. The reason Ms. Pao was fired (let's be honest) is that she failed to m…

Nevermind misogyny etc., you're pointing to two incidents of unknown magnitude (because you lack the data internal to the company) among an unknown number of other things she's handled and you claim she's failed as a CEO? That is ridiculously uninformed.

Is disputing her failure a serious position? Regardless of whether or not they are the community reddit wants the company angered its moderators enough to trigger something that ended up being in the news and very visible even to those that use reddit without ever viewing comments.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#599

Post by foiboitoi »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #295
mcphage wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Clearly both should be banned, but banning one is much better than banning neither.

No, it isn't. Given that there was no blatantly illegal content involved, there are only two possible reasons for not treating these two subreddits the same. Either the admins are a) clueless nitwits who don't know what's going on with their own site, or b) sympathetic to one but not the other. Which do you believe is the correct explanation? Can you see any other possibilities?

Funny how you're getting downvoted for stating the obvious.

Re: Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

#600

Post by agumonkey »

dmfdmf wrote: post #520
WalterBright wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather have appalling speech than censored speech. The idea is to not confuse supporting a person's free speech with endorsing his views. Also, reddit is a private company and so is not obliged to provide a platform for anyone's free speech, that also is a facet of freedom.

At last, a voice of reason in hundreds of pointless comments. Free speech is a principle and people should be free to say whatever they want no matter how disgusting or distasteful to the majority or mainstream. This is the ideal of a free society and people who can't make the distinction between supporting the principle and yet rejecting the advocates of idiocy are implicitly advocating some form of government censo…

What about duty of thinking ?

I'm often weirded by the freedom of speech argument in non critical contexts. These persons life aren't at risk because they can't express opinions, isn't that what is meant by FoS ? not just a free card to be able to let yourself loose in public.

I have no solution, but far too often FoS ends up a noisy non-discussions.

ps: I'll add that I was somehow afraid to express my views on Freedom of Speech. Funny.

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