Interim reddit CEO, and former junior investing partner at Kleiner Perkins, Ellen Pao has admitted that her team “screwed up.” The unsurprising admission comes in the wake of months of controversy over the site’s direction. In particular, users have protested against the site’s new censorship measures, the absence of proper mod tools, the admins’ poor communication, and the dismissal of AMA coordinator Victoria Taylor.
As a result, reddit’s overseers have helped spawn a number of the site’s own competitors, including Voat, thereby losing a fraction of its community. The extent to which this has affected the site’s traffic and reputation remains to be fully seen.
Now, an increasingly popular Change.org petition has been drawing attention to the afore-mentioned problems. Created by American resident Billy Johnson, the petition questions the site’s management, before demanding Pao’s immediate departure.
By July 7, the petition had gained over 200,000 signatures, and the ongoing upheaval drew national media attention from the likes of CNN, TIME and USA Today.
Pao recently took the opportunity to issue an apology to the community, posting a lengthy statement under the self.announcements subreddit. Reading between the lines, however, it feels like the message was primarily aimed at addressing the Change.org petition, which continues to gain considerable momentum - so much so that it’s turning into an avalanche of signatories, collectively calling for her head.
The message feels like it’s steeped in desperation; a half-answer that has no weight or authority, and will unlikely resonate with the reddit community to any appreciable degree. Simply put, the answer may as well have been uttered in the vacuum of space.
Without any kind of remedial action on the immediate horizon, very few will take the announcement seriously; you get the sense that not even Pao can take herself seriously:
“I know these are just words, and it may be hard for you to believe us. I don’t have all the answers, and it will take time for us to deliver concrete results. I mean it when I say we screwed up, and we want to have a meaningful ongoing discussion. I know we’ve drifted out of touch with the community as we’ve grown and added more people, and we want to connect more. I and the team are committed to talking more often with the community, starting now.”
As part of her apology, Pao pledges to fix two key problems: communication and mod tools. While I’m sure these will be considered welcome steps, if and when they eventually materialize, the reddit community is still left with a number of lingering complaints.
Of course, Pao is the source of discontent for many redditors, and I think we can assume she has no intention of stepping down voluntarily. Pao talks about appointing a Moderator Advocate, which would certainly aid in disseminating the message of reddit’s administration team. The problem is, if nobody likes your message in the first place, you’re just more effectively communicating bad ideas (perhaps an even bigger problem).
Undoubtedly, the mod tools will appease the many hard-working, unpaid moderators. It’s been a point of contention for a long time, and it seems surprising that this issue has only just been discussed. One might question, if it’s taken this long to get some kind of admission that this is a problem, how long will it take to actually fix it?
Finally, we’re left with the issue of censorship, which Viral Global News has discussed in a previous post. If we continue to see comments sections like this…
… we may very well have a problem.
Reddit is supposed to be about freedom of expression. While there is some debate to be had over whether banning r/FatPeopleHate was the right call, it’s difficult to condone the flagrant mass deletion of comments, simply because you’re trying to cover up a mistake.
And this doesn’t appear to be atypical of Pao’s behavior.
Ellen Pao’s apology has been met with skepticism, with many redditors awaiting genuine change. As Pao confessed, her words are exactly that - just words. One thing she can rely upon, however - assuming she holds onto her current position - is for the reddit community to keep her in check.