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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

#791

Post by wingless »

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #767
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.

Free speech is between you and the government. If a company that runs a forum says it bans people for abusive comments there's nothing to do with free speech. We see with Reddit that the ugliest users are the ones that are the loudest and drown out everyone else.

>Free speech is between you and the government.

No. Free speech is a principle that any party can choose to respect. Free speech has been one of the very core values of Reddit right from the beginning, in the form of the ability to create and manage a subreddit with very minimal restrictions.

Being a platform of free speech was the single biggest reason Reddit grew to be the giant community that it is today.

Then Pao comes along and repeatedly shows that she doesn't respect free speech at all. What do you expect the users to do, other than revolt?

It's easy to brush off these incidents as the doings of "the ugliest users", but remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. History books are filled with people being silenced due to their expression of uncomfortable ideas.

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

#792

Post by wingless »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #27
dvt wrote: post #20

Pretty much had to happen. To say that the Victoria situation was mishandled is a severe understatement. I wonder what will happen with communities like FPH and others (that have since moved to Voat). Will reddit lessen their censorship efforts? Time will tell. IMO, the problem at hand is that reddit is still trying to make advertisers their bread and butter. And advertisers will never be overly attracted to censorsh…

> Will reddit lessen their censorship efforts? I doubt it. Garbage like FPH should have been dealt with much sooner. The reason there was a backlash about that at all, imo, is because they let it drag out too long. Reddit was the friend-parent for so long that when it finally came time to enforce some discipline, it came as a shock and felt like a betrayal.

You're talking as if Reddit is doing them a favor by providing them a platform. With your idea of "discipline", Reddit would never become the giant that it is today.

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

#793

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #766
dmfdmf wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, but people should also be free to refuse to listen to things they find distasteful, and to refuse access to people who post things they find distasteful on platforms they operate.

>...and to refuse access to people who post things they find distasteful on platforms they operate.

I tend to agree with what I think you're saying but I wonder if you realize what a controversial opinion that can be to some people. Consider the reaction to Rand Paul's criticism of the Civil Rights Act. Should one be able to operate a restaurant/business/country club that won't serve [blacks, LGBT, Muslims, whites, hispanics, cops, etc]?

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

#794

Post by jodah »

KVFinn wrote: post #692
jodah wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the vitriol which I kept seeing peripherally... was absolutely appalling. I'm not a Reddit user, but the vitriol seemed pretty commensurate with what motivated it, which among other things included the despicable (and possibly illegal) firing of an employee for having leukemia (more or less).

>I'm not a Reddit user, but the vitriol seemed pretty commensurate with what motivated it, which among other things included the despicable (and possibly illegal) firing of an employee for having leukemia (more or less). That employee got cancer in 2012. He got a salary for almost two years while too sick to work, of the total three years he was at the company. Four months of that salary undo Pao. Then he got an addi…

A few things:

> somehow this became twisted by the furious mob

There's no mob here. If anything, most people seem unfamiliar with this episode.

> Legally in the US you are guaranteed three months of unpaid leave for getting sick

Except where one qualifies for protection under the ADA [1].

> That's not just not despicable, it's laudable

There are two things here. That Reddit maintained the employee for nearly two years, as you say, is clearly laudable, though this decision predated Pao. My overall view of the situation, and likely this goes for others, is in how it was ultimately handled, where Pao said one thing to the employee then did another, more than once. I can see a situation where this could have been handled openly and candidly, with humanity, but that's not what happened.

Maybe in the end he would have relapsed again, and maybe his doctor would have determined that he was too sick to perform his duties, and maybe firing him for that actually would have been legal (without knowing his ADA status we can't know), but that's quite a few 'ifs'. Not knowing what would have happened, Pao could have addressed the uncertainly in an honest way, but instead she chose to lie to and then fire the employee. I'm not a one man mob, and I respect your difference of opinion, but that to me is despicable.

[1] http://www.cancer.org/treatment/findingandpayingfortreatment...

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

#795

Post by nindalf »

KVFinn wrote: post #701
nindalf wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a lot of comments like yours claiming that the hate was only because she's a minority. I get the feeling such people find it unacceptable to dislike a woman or a black/Asian person regardless of what they did. I disliked her for * Firing Victoria, who took AMAs to the next level. I enjoyed them a ton. * Firing an employee for having leukemia - http://redd.it/3c0idl * Using corporate weasel words instead of havi…

>Firing Victoria, who took AMAs to the next level. I enjoyed them a ton. The Victoria specific AMAs tended to be short, done on the phone where she types responses, and oriented around'My new movie is out Friday don't miss it' instead of a conversation. I prefer the raw format myself. >Firing an employee for having leukemia - http://redd.it/3c0idl That this became the battle-flag for everyone to pitchfork is seriousl…

> oriented around'My new movie...

Incorrect. She did some of the best ones. The ones with Bill Murray and Sean Bean really stick out in my mind as being really great. You couldn't see either of them, but thanks to her you could make out inflections, emphasis and character. It was like hearing them talk, rather than having them type. Either way, regardless of what you think I loved the AMAs that Victoria assisted with, and so did a whole lot of other people. Pao took that away from us, and you're saying that we shouldn't criticise her for that?

> That this became the battle-flag to pitch-fork

He was almost recovered. He would have rejoined work in a month, but she rejected that. That reddit was so benevolent to him was thanks to hueypriest and Yishan Wong. She reversed this policy. Now you're saying its appalling that people are criticising Pao because Yishan and hueypriest were so nice.

> What does this even mean?

It means that the people most engaged with the site (top submitters and moderators) were unhappy with her. The site depends on these people for quality content This was written in really simple English, I don't see what your trouble with understanding it was.

I feel like you were in the flow of a "point-by-point takedown" and had to say something about the last line, but that left you looking pretty silly by the end.

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

#796

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

rustynails77 wrote: post #686
ryanmonroe wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These persons life aren't at risk because they can't express opinions, isn't that what is meant by FoS ? No

This thread is very interesting and I deeply appreciate the comments people are making, including FoS, fear to comment on FoS, etc. I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate. For example, HN strongly discourages attacking another member personally (eg. calling someone else idiot). I consider this a reasonable limit on freedom of speech, but concepts and opinions should be fully open for discussion (eg. pro/…

>I personally respect freedom of speech, except hate.

How far are you willing to take that? You could potentially prohibit satire.

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

#797

Post by coleparm »

comrh wrote: post #630
Uhhrrr wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very much like GamerGate. There is an attempt to deflect an overwhelming amount of legitimate criticism by pointing to a few trolls and characterizing all of it as "racist and misogynist".

And just like GamerGate the first reply to this is attacking a woman about her sex life.

Drop the sex life garbage, people go after men for their sex lives all the time. Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Bob Packwood, Brett Favre, Mark Hurd all spring to mind.

Pointing out someone, who happens to be a women, is a shitty person doesn't make criticism misogynistic, and, IMHO, it's sexist to excuse them from criticism / repercussions simply because they're women.

It's a bullshit tactic. "Hey, that women pushed a car full of kids into a lake!", "Why are you such a misogynist?"

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

#798

Post by geofft »

bluecalm wrote: post #743
wvenable wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I browse /r/all occasionally to get out of the bubble of the subs I'm subscribed to. And sometimes there is a popular post in an obscure subreddit that I've never heard of before and get that gets me to subscribe.

They could add something like sub-reddit tags: NSFW, offensive, video games, sports, technical etc. Then on r/all NSW/offensive are disabled by default (the same way NSFW is rigth now - you need to change your account settings). Problem solved, FPH will never make it to people who don't want to see offensive staff.

I think you're misunderstanding what the commenters in this subthread are saying. It's not simply that I don't want to see FPH. I also don't want to see advice animals, documentaries, creepypasta, or jokes. I have nothing against these as forms of content, it's just not what I visit Reddit for.

And even among technology, I have no interest in seeing things about Ruby or Go. Again, it's not that I dislike the languages, it's that they're not professionally relevant to me at the moment so it's not what I visit Reddit for.

So what we need is some way for subreddits to be tagged with their own content: /r/rust about Rust, /r/python about Python, /r/sandersforpresident about Bernie, etc., and some /r/all equivalent that just matches what I'm interested in -- which is exactly what https://reddit.com is for me, right now. I don't need /r/all to be fixed; I have no interest in even seeing "all technology" or "all religion" or "all presidential candidates".

FPH being or not being on /r/all is irrelevant.

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

#799

Post by AndrewKemendo »

vshan wrote: post #693
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between slagging - whatever that is - and not gushing corporate BS. How about he be honest instead of just a shill? Sam seems to be good at "playing the game" and this type of thing falls right in line with it.

No -- it's just basic courtesy. Any criticism Mr. Altman has of Ms. Pao, he can share with her privately, and it's not privy to us.

Disagree. Basic courtesy would be "We appreciate all the work Ms. Pao has done and the way in which she handled her resignation as well as her professionalism in the face of many abusive comments from the community."

The glowing "done an amazing job" etc... is typical corporate BS and is the classic back scratching that happens at these upper management levels. As an example when Victoria was fired, there was no statement or acknowledgement despite the publicity - let alone a "Victoria has done an amazing job..." type statement by Pao, Alexis or otherwise.

Again, just reinforcing the manager/worker class division.

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

#800

Post by KVFinn »

nindalf wrote: post #795
KVFinn wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Firing Victoria, who took AMAs to the next level. I enjoyed them a ton. The Victoria specific AMAs tended to be short, done on the phone where she types responses, and oriented around'My new movie is out Friday don't miss it' instead of a conversation. I prefer the raw format myself. >Firing an employee for having leukemia - http://redd.it/3c0idl That this became the battle-flag for everyone to pitchfork is seriousl…

> oriented around'My new movie... Incorrect. She did some of the best ones. The ones with Bill Murray and Sean Bean really stick out in my mind as being really great. You couldn't see either of them, but thanks to her you could make out inflections, emphasis and character. It was like hearing them talk, rather than having them type. Either way, regardless of what you think I loved the AMAs that Victoria assisted with…

>He was almost recovered. He would have rejoined work in a month, but she rejected that. That reddit was so benevolent to him was thanks to hueypriest and Yishan Wong. She reversed this policy. Now you're saying its appalling that people are criticising Pao because Yishan and hueypriest were so nice.

While she was CEO he got 4 months of the almost two years being paid while too sick to work. He got an extra full year of insurance.

He never had a move date scheduled. He was "2-3 months away" and in his AMA when asked where he was working today? He said he still wasn't feeling well enough for full time work - this was 5 months later. "Sorry, we can't keep waiting, we need someone who can do the job immediately."

So yes it is appalling that this became the reason to be furious, while treating an employee better than he would be treated at 99% of other companies in the US. In a reasonable universe the story would have been: "Wow, reddit treats employees amazingly."

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