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.
Haha.
The Reddit misogynistic circle jerk is 90% of why I left. It's good to see them all eating a shit sandwich. "You mean the white guy did it? Ok... uh... ok... surely there's some way we can blame this on feminism, though. I mean, the guy did hire a woman CEO. That sounds pretty feminist to me. The important thing is that girls are still crappy and totally not kewl."
I don't think it's misogyny. In fact, I rarely see sexist, racist, etc, stuff on Reddit. Maybe it's exaggerated, maybe it's what I'm subbed too, or maybe I just don't notice it.
But I digress. To me, this seems more of a case of pride. Lot's of people jumped on the let's hate Pao bandwagon. Now, as the truth comes out, everyone is too proud to admit that they were in the wrong, so of course, they'll try to find any way justify their actions.
Never even heard of that sub until now. Just checked it out and the top post is a petition to fire Ohanian.
But I don't doubt for a second that subs like that didn't make sexist or racist remarks about Pao when the hate train was going full speed. That's just the internet for you.
The irony is that the big bad SJW Pao might have been the one resisting the things that everyone on reddit hates her for.
What I think would be the sweetest justice is if reddit brought in a libertarian WASP that basically just said, "Free market, bro, I don't owe you anything" and hammered the site into a publicity platform for celebrities. The likely outcome will involve more smoke and mirrors, unfortunately.
I completely disagree.
I don't believe any sect of the internet deserves to be nuked. Sure, I don't agree with a lot of them (Take for example, Stormfront), but that's kind of the thing behind the ideology of "Free Speech"; it also applies to things I find distasteful and things that i disagree with.
I just don't think it's in the best interest of any web space of discussion to stifle an opinion of any kind. It creates a situation where the site takes a stance on things, and eventually you end up with an echo chamber of dull discussion.
Imagine if Facebook suddenly started to ban/censor people that mentioned (for the sake of this discussion) anything pro left. Eventually, you would end up with an echo chamber of right wing political discussion, which really makes any actual discussion (ie: Not just dank memes gargled up from the depths of the internet) quite dull.
I'm not the person you were talking to but I think you're making the same mistake many people do when they talk about "free speech"; that is, you're viewing it as a case of free speech vs no free speech, rather than the situation we're actually trying to solve which is free speech for bigots vs free speech for minorities.
What I mean is that it's a zero sum game. When you have a privately owned community like Reddit, the choices you make over what kinds of things are allowed to be said shapes the community you build. You can be all for allowing "all kinds of speech" but what that amounts to is the community being a home to a significant portion of racists, misogynists, and other flavours of bigots.
And that's cool because hey, we're all about listening to all sides of discussion and not allowing ourselves to become an echo chamber! Yet, that action of allowing such speech means that most minorities aren't going to want to go there. Why the fuck would a black person willingly sign up to Stormfront 2.0? They wouldn't. So your choice of allowing all speech means that you exclude minority views from your community and don't allow their speech to be heard.
The dilemma therefore, as I say above, is over what kind of free speech you want - the speech for people to say hateful things or the speech from minorities. Sure, for a hard line free speecher it sucks having to choose but the choice should be an otherwise easy one.
As for the idea that removing hate speech and bigotry would lead to an echo chamber, this is just empirically and undeniably false. Many places, organisations, and communities limit free speech and don't turn into echo chambers. Take universities and academic journals, for example. They limit what things you can and can't say, they limit who can attend meetings or who can publish articles, they socially and officially reject people who break the rules they've set up, etc etc, but it would be ridiculous to think that the fields of science and philosophy and history and so on are "echo chambers". They are challenging, thought provoking, often heatedly disagreeing places full of debate and argument.
Banning bigots from a community isn't going to turn it into an echo chamber, it's going to do the opposite. You'll be flooded with a wave of viewpoints and perspectives you've never heard before because previously you've been accidentally shutting them out.
- free speech for bigots vs free speech for minorities.
I'm sorry, but that's just not how it works. Part of free speech is accepting the fact that other people with dissenting/disagreeable opinions will also be able to have a voice.
Do I like the stormfronters on coontown? No. Do I like the radfem harassment from places like SRS? No. Do I think either of them deserve to be censored/deleted? Absolutely not. At the end of the day, regardless of how stupid or wrong their statements or viewpoints may be, they are people. I guess this may be idealism, but I don't think anyone should be robbed of their voice.
- Yet, that action of allowing such speech means that most minorities aren't going to want to go there
This logic doesn't pan out. On the flip side, wouldn't the fact that minorities post on the community mean that stormfronters would not sign up? Clearly this is not the case, as looking at reddit, there is an incredibly wide variety of communities, many in clear conflict of the other. /r/MRA existing doesn't stop /r/TwoX from existing, and vice versa.
- speech for people to say hateful things or the speech from minorities
You say this again here, but I just can't wrap my head around where exactly this mentality is coming from. The speech of minorities is worth no more or less than anyone else's. By that logic, because Caucasians are technically a minority in the world, does the word of the Caucasian hold more weight, and people of color should not be allowed to criticize them?
- Take universities and academic journals, for example.
It's funny you should mention these, because that's exactly what happens. If I were to ask you to describe the typical political spectrum of the average college student, and their viewpoints, I think we can both agree that the stereotype adheres to them quite well. Left leaning, probably close to the idea of what a stereotypical "Social Justice Warrior" (you know my meaning on this) would be. What do you think would happen if someone of an opposite ideology attempted to debate something?
Here's an example:
It's strange you mention academia and then also try to state that they are somehow also apply this logic. Do you so quickly forget what comes of the stifling of opinion and ideas in academia? There was an entire period of history where the views of anything that contradicted the norm at the time (the church in particular), was viewed as blasphemy and it was indeed a literal echo chamber of opinions.
At it's core, this issue has nothing to do with bigots, misogyny, misandry, racism, sexism, whatever. It has to do with instead of taking the opportunity to interact with your fellow man, and use the opportunity to engage them and provoke true thought provoking discussion, you silence them. What good will ever come of silencing someone? I think it's much more fruitful to engage the racist/sexist/misogynist/misandrist/bigot, to talk and reason with them. Only then will you come to an understanding and have an opportunity to change their perspective.
- I'm sorry, but that's just not how it works. Part of free speech is accepting the fact that other people with dissenting/disagreeable opinions will also be able to have a voice.
Exactly. So people fighting for the right for racists to speak are excluding minority voices (and any other reasonable person who doesn't want to join a racist community).
- Do I like the stormfronters on coontown? No. Do I like the radfem harassment from places like SRS? No. Do I think either of them deserve to be censored/deleted? Absolutely not. At the end of the day, regardless of how stupid or wrong their statements or viewpoints may be, they are people. I guess this may be idealism, but I don't think anyone should be robbed of their voice.
I don't think you can really compare SRS pointing out shitty comments to Stormfronters and Coontown members, but regardless, I essentially agree - nobody should be robbed of their voice. The part you're missing is that those two groups are incompatible so one of them will inevitably lose their voice. The question is just which is more worthy of having a voice - in my opinion, it's not the racists.
- This logic doesn't pan out. On the flip side, wouldn't the fact that minorities post on the community mean that stormfronters would not sign up?
Not really since racists love to sign up to communities full of minorities because that's what they do; harass people and try to recruit the ignorant. They also have the opportunity to live their lives without being challenged for their racism (because most of the time they can keep it quiet or even get supported for it), whereas minorities obviously don't have that option so they aren't going to take a break from their life by subjecting themselves to more bigoted shit.
- Clearly this is not the case, as looking at reddit, there is an incredibly wide variety of communities, many in clear conflict of the other. /r/MRA existing doesn't stop /r/TwoX from existing, and vice versa.
Probably not the best example, TwoX was overrun by MRAs and men in general and so all the women had to leave... But even if that wasn't the case, it still isn't the best example as mensrights generally aren't as hostile and harassing as other bigots, so you seem to be trying to compare actual bigots to dissenting opinions. Nobody is talking about removing dissenting opinions, just bigoted exclusionary ones.
- You say this again here, but I just can't wrap my head around where exactly this mentality is coming from. The speech of minorities is worth no more or less than anyone else's.
I don't understand how you can say this - of course the perspective from minorities is more important and valuable than the blind rage of bigots.. That's a no-brainer.
- By that logic, because Caucasians are technically a minority in the world, does the word of the Caucasian hold more weight, and people of color should not be allowed to criticize them?
Caucasians aren't a minority in the relevant sense here. "Minority" doesn't mean "statistical minority", it refers to the relationship within a given society and across the world white people are generally the privileged group, even in places where they are rare or outnumbered.
But if I owned a community with an analogous problem where minorities were using my community to spread hate and attack white people, and white people were less willing to go there, then I would remove the hateful groups because that wouldn't be the kind of community I'd want.
- It's funny you should mention these, because that's exactly what happens. If I were to ask you to describe the typical political spectrum of the average college student, and their viewpoints, I think we can both agree that the stereotype adheres to them quite well. Left leaning, probably close to the idea of what a stereotypical "Social Justice Warrior" (you know my meaning on this) would be.
That's certainly a common stereotype but not really true. I'm not sure what you mean by "SJW" though since the common meaning seems to be "left of the Nazis".
- What do you think would happen if someone of an opposite ideology attempted to debate something?
Framing it as an issue of "ideologies" is a little disingenuous, generally the protests occurred with people who have endorsed incest, date rape, etc.
- It's strange you mention academia and then also try to state that they are somehow also apply this logic. Do you so quickly forget what comes of the stifling of opinion and ideas in academia? There was an entire period of history where the views of anything that contradicted the norm at the time (the church in particular), was viewed as blasphemy and it was indeed a literal echo chamber of opinions.
Well for starters, we aren't living in the 1600s any more. But secondly, the common myth about the Church stifling views has been debunked so many times. The Church was one of the biggest supporters of scientific advances, and were the early adopters of things like heliocentrism and evolution. The "blasphemy" only occurred when the 'scientist' went outside of academia and started doing things like insulting the pope.
- At it's core, this issue has nothing to do with bigots, misogyny, misandry, racism, sexism, whatever. It has to do with instead of taking the opportunity to interact with your fellow man, and use the opportunity to engage them and provoke true thought provoking discussion, you silence them. What good will ever come of silencing someone?
Exactly! So why force minorities out of our communities instead of being more inclusive and having a discussion with them?
- What good will ever come of silencing someone? I think it's much more fruitful to engage the racist/sexist/misogynist/misandrist/bigot, to talk and reason with them. Only then will you come to an understanding and have an opportunity to change their perspective.
But nobody is talking about silencing them. They still have free speech, they can just do it elsewhere. For example, I see great value in talking to and studying pedophiles to understand what makes them tick. I'm not going to invite one to stay in my house though. That's not "silencing" them because I don't allow them in my private space, it's just that I would care more about my children's freedoms than the pedophile's.
- I don't think you can really compare SRS pointing out shitty comments to Stormfronters and Coontown members
You're right, they are often worse! Nothing says equality and justice for all like doxxing (actual doxx, not a skiddy facebook doxx) people and harassing them across the internet encouraging people to kill themselves.
- They also have the opportunity to live their lives without being challenged for their racism
Isn't the fact that you and seemingly half of the internet seek to silence their admittedly disdainful activity proof to the contrary?
- Probably not the best example, TwoX was overrun by MRAs and men in general and so all the women had to leave...
Yep, absolutely infested with MRA's 
Nice straw man though.
- That's certainly a common stereotype but not really true
Do you require more evidence? I am certain I can provide mountains of it.
- Framing it as an issue of "ideologies" is a little disingenuous, generally the protests occurred with people who have endorsed incest, date rape, etc.
This is unequivocally the most disingenuous disgusting thing that has come out of this discussion.
Let me get this straight; You believe wholeheartedly that anyone who does not conform to a left leaning feminist political spectrum endorsed incest, date rape and more?
Think about that.
- Exactly! So why force minorities out of our communities instead of being more inclusive and having a discussion with them?
Nobody is forcing minorities out. I don't recall seeing a post on reddit from the admins saying "Sorry, we don't want the brown folk and jews here anymore!". You instead create a hypersensitive hugbox that in general drives traffic away because of its unwelcoming atmosphere (Take a look at Alexa rankings for reddit recently if you are doubtful). Reddit (already infamous for it's hivemind activity), becomes an even larger echo chamber, where you can circlejerk as long as your arms allow.
- But nobody is talking about silencing them.
Except you're doing just that..
- They still have free speech, they can just do it elsewhere.
It's hilariously ironic that you use this specific phrasing. Gee, it reminds me of something oddly familiar and related to this topic..
- I'm not going to invite one to stay in my house though. That's not "silencing" them because I don't allow them in my private space
The internet is NOT your private space. It never has, and never will be.
- But secondly, the common myth about the Church stifling views has been debunked so many times.
Citation required, because every reputable resource refutes your claims.
- You're right, they are often worse! Nothing says equality and justice for all like doxxing (actual doxx, not a skiddy facebook doxx) people and harassing them across the internet encouraging people to kill themselves.
Just to be clear, not of that happened outside of the minds of conspiracy theorists.
- Isn't the fact that you and seemingly half of the internet seek to silence their admittedly disdainful activity proof to the contrary?
"Half of the internet"? Are you serious? Reddit, "the front page of the internet", supports coontown and basically every second thread on default subs like videos is a highly upvoted racist video. No, there definitely isn't a significant pushback against racism.
- Yep, absolutely infested with MRA's
Nice straw man though.
There's no strawman. Have you ever been there? Actually looked at the comments? Women literally left there when it got defaulted and went to TrollX instead. That's why there was a massive spike in users, because everything something like harassment, cat calling or rape came up, a bunch of men would be there telling women it's not so bad.
- Do you require more evidence? I am certain I can provide mountains of it.
Well yes, I would love a single piece of evidence to support any of your claims.
- This is unequivocally the most disingenuous disgusting thing that has come out of this discussion.
Let me get this straight; You believe wholeheartedly that anyone who does not conform to a left leaning feminist political spectrum endorsed incest, date rape and more?
Think about that.
What are you talking about? No, people who write books endorsing incest and date rape, then become "famous" for that book and then give talks that include discussion of those books, endorses incest, date rape and more. Like Warren Farrell, whose talk was peacefully protested.
- Nobody is forcing minorities out. I don't recall seeing a post on reddit from the admins saying "Sorry, we don't want the brown folk and jews here anymore!". You instead create a hypersensitive hugbox that in general drives traffic away because of its unwelcoming atmosphere (Take a look at Alexa rankings for reddit recently if you are doubtful). Reddit (already infamous for it's hivemind activity), becomes an even larger echo chamber, where you can circlejerk as long as your arms allow.
Racists and bigots in general are forcing minorities out, that's the point. Nobody is asking for a "hug box" (except the racists and "free speechers"), and instead people are just asking for a platform for everyone to have an equal voice.
- Except you're doing just that..
No, they can still talk about it elsewhere.
- It's hilariously ironic that you use this specific phrasing. Gee, it reminds me of something oddly familiar and related to this topic..
Well, it's practically the principle of free speech, so yeah it should sound familiar. Or are you trying to say that getting to choose what happens in your own private home or community is similar to something like racial separation or Nazism?
Please tell me it's the latter, that would be hilarious.
- The internet is NOT your private space. It never has, and never will be.
Of course, that's why I'm not suggesting banning racism from the internet. Reddit and other communities ARE private spaces. You can get upset and throw your toys out of the cot all you like, but that's always going to be true and you can't change that.
- Citation required, because every reputable resource refutes your claims.
Read any history book. A great example is Galileo and helicentrism, which the Pope was a massive supporter of but disagreed with his metaphysical claims about how it affected the nature of god. To explain his point of view, Galileo wrote a book that was essentially a dialogue between two hypothetical people, with one being the scientist (Galileo) and the other having a name that basically translated to "Moron", which contained all the arguments the Pope had raised. That was what he was in trouble for, the blasphemy.
The history of evolution is also another good example, where the Catholic church was the only group that took Darwin seriously. Scientists at his time rejected his claims and thought they sounded a little outlandish, and it wasn't until they learnt more of Mendel's work and looked more into genetics, that it became more widely accepted.
Anyway, if you're actually interested then there's some good discussion and links here, here, and here.
Voat?
It seems like the people that were crying about free speech and subs getting banned were the ones that moved to Voat and started posting. It's being made by the people that the manchildren want in power, and the admins over there are getting burned by trying to keep the manchildren happy (See: Rejected by PayPal, Banned from hosting service).
I honestly try to stay out of witchcraft, but how? Can you tell me anything specific?
She wanted to turn Reddit into Tumblr 2.0, basically.
Here's an article where she states that "she has removed salary negotiations from the hiring process because studies show women don’t fare as well as men" and that "she has passed on hiring candidates who don’t embrace her priority of building a gender-balanced and multiracial team" and another article where she says that it's not Reddit's goal "to be a completely free-speech platform" and that it should be a "safe platform" (read: we won't tolerate different opinions).
Because of her policies, a popular subreddit with over 150,000 subscribers (/r/fatpeoplehate) was banned and other popular but controversial subreddits were worried that they would be next.
In other words she chose to directly antagonise hundreds of thousands of Redditors for ideological and possibly economic reasons, all the while trying to paint herself as the victim of harassment.
I thought that there wan info when everything started that /u/kn0thing was responsible for Victoria being fired? I can't find the link, but I remember something being said about it.
- 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.
I wasn't totally right but I was on the right sort of track. francopoli was closer
I deleted all my reddit stuff when the mods of /r/games mas deleted comments on TB's twitlonger back a year ago. Went through roughly 20,000 comments and deleted them all.
/u/spez has already stated that he is not going to reverse the changes. And not a single person was shocked.
I stand by my prediction: Reddit will be sold to someone by the end of the year. These actions are to sterilize the site for the future owner.
The thing most people don't get is that a guy like me is not an audience you want to cater to. In fact, having 100's or thousands of guys like me on your web site is a bad thing. Sure we know stuff, and talk and add to the community, but we are bad for a business.
I don't watch TV, I don't really read fiction, I don't go to the movies, I don't buy useless clutter, I have a set diet, I use ad-blocking software, I save more than I spend, and I don't use services that benefit from traditional advertising. A guy like me is the exact person you want OFF your website.... IF YOU INTEND TO MONETIZE IT. That Victoria lady was canned for not going along with the monetizing scheme for IAMA. I never went to that subreddit, which reading about it now, looks to be a major draw for page views. I blocked all adds on Reddit for months which means that the 20-30 hours a week I spent on Reddit were a net negative to reddit the company. When I bailed on reddit I went in and scrubbed all my comments, all 20,000+ of them (And now that there are scripts to do that for you, I'm a bit pissed I did not think about that last year). Reddit the company will not miss me. Yet, if enough of the people like me that hung out there bail on the site, reddit the community will weaken and scatter to follow the people having the interesting conversations.
They want young people who buy stuff to use the web site. They want celebrities who draw in people who pay attention to ads. They want safe, clean communities that won't scare away mom and grandma.
The whole fatpeoplehate thing? Don't care. People in those subreddits are not nice people. Some of that was, IMO, 4chan leaking, and if they were harassing people off site (The cause of the ban) then they deserved it. FPH was banned, in my opinion, because it grew big enough that it was on the front page of /r/all as early as March. Can't have disgusting stuff like that on the front page when junior shows this new cool website to mom and dad, now, can we?
Everything Reddit is trying to do right now, and for the last year or so, is to do one thing and one thing only. Prep it for a sale to someone. Whatsapp sold for 16 freaking billion dollars. Snapchat is being valued at 19 BILLION dollars! Uber, a company that honestly has no real product other than the people who use its phone app is worth $40 BILLION dollars. What do those all have in common? An active advertising-friendly demographic of a userbase. There has to be people at Reddit, Inc seeing this go down and getting pissed that when they are in the news, it is about fatpeoplehate, /r/coontown, /r/cutefemalecorpses, /r/pictsofdeadkids etc and not valuation numbers in the billions of dollars.
The thing is, though, that the "interesting people" and I include most of the people here on Hubski in that category, make the community. You guys are why I am here. Everything else is just a website, right? Digg did not figure this out in time, and now we will watch and see if Reddit goes the same way. Thursday there is going to be a big AMA of some sort with the admins, and Hubski will hopefully be able to grab some of the cool people who bail when that goes bad.