I'll be the first to say it: this woman gets far more hatred than she deserves. She thinks she's just doing her job. And there is so much racist and sexist bias against her all over reddit, as a fellow woman of color, it makes me supremely uncomfortable. :(
Sure she's made some questionable choices like firing Victoria, but things like banning FPH I'm 100% behind. This must count as some form of cyber bullying, should it not? Sorry if my comment upsets anyone, but I really wish people would cut the woman some slack.
I have to disagree with you there. If this was Bill Gates or Tim Cook, people would want them out just as badly as they do Pao. Since she became interim CEO she's shown a compete lack of understanding of Reddit, it's core principals, and most importantly it's userbase. Her high-horse attitude hasn't helped her either, which is why a lot of people are viewing her apology with a lot of skepticism.
If she really want's to improve Reddit she needs to get her hands dirty and be a part of Reddit. Not a shmuck behind a desk dictating polices.
I understand where you are coming from, trust me I do. But food for thought: If it was Bill Gates would he have to endure the same kind of racial slurs and misogyny for his perceived incompetencies?
Nobody wants her out because she is a woman or a minority. They think she is incompetent, and in their attempt to criticize her, they fall back on petty insults (which is definitely A problem, just not the same problem.)
I think of it like getting cut off while driving. You might be angry at the driver, and yell insults based on age, race, gender, looks, baldness, big nose, whatever… You don't hate this person because they are say, bald, but it's the easy thing to pull out and insult with.
People hate her based on – paraphrasing Pao herself – 'behavior'.
To be fair, 1990's Bill Gates DID get a lot of flak for being an evil, loser nerd, a thief, a villain, (even a fee antichrist references that I can remember anyhow), etc. Maybe not sexism or racism as blatantly as Pao (which is sad, but angry people are stupid in large groups). But people all over the world hated Billy-G a lot more than on just one website, and they were vicious about it. Hell, many people still do.
Here's the thing: we already know about her history. We already know that she's married to a crook, and both are very ligitatious. She plays the gender card, and he plays the race card. We know that she knows nothing about Reddit or the technology involved in it.
So, starting out, most of the audience isn't going to be in her favor. And then after stumbling for 9 months with bad decisions, yeah, most of Reddit hates her. The reactions are fairly predictable, actually.
Honestly I haven't seen any of that on Reddit. But, maybe I've haven't been to the subreddit's where it's happening. My interests on there are mostly PC Gaming, My Little Pony, and Linux.
Well it would be hard considering he is a different race and a he.
But the part I think you have wrong is that you suggest in your first post that racism and sexism is the root of the issue, and it is not. She is absolutely terrible at her job, and there are a bunch of idiots using race and sex based insults. I don't believe anyone over there has suggested she is terrible at her job because of her race or sex, but because of her actions.
I think making it out as if people are suggesting that, as your first post does, is equally disappointing but in a different way.
If she really want's to improve Reddit she needs to get her hands dirty and be a part of Reddit.
From this weekend's events, and her response, my intuition leads me to believe that "improving Reddit" is not her primary goal. Her initial efforts at damage control were directed toward the Mainstream Media. Only today did she get around to addressing the Reddit community.
Her actions make more sense if her goal is to groom Reddit for an Initial Public Offering, rather than keep users/contributors/moderators content...
I strongly disagree. I think the criticism she is receiving is well deserved. The issue wasn't with simply banning FPH, it was that other, significantly worse subs weren't banned. As a woman of color, I would think that you would be much more concerned with subs like: /r/CoonTown/, /r/Beatings/, /r/punchable_children/, /r/punchablefaces/, /r/TheRedPill/, /r/Beastiality/, or /r/spacedicks/ (among many more). If you're going to ban something, make sure you ACTUALLY ban it, don't just cherry pick to suit your own personal agenda. And in regards to the Victoria issue - the "black out" wasn't to show solidarity with her, it was primarily to protest the lack of communication between admins and mods, along with other, more sub-specific issues.
I've seen the generic racist and misogynistic comments towards her in Reddit threads, but it's hardly shocking when you look at who is upset (see the above list for reference). I've also read a lot of constructive and well justified arguments against her (in fact, that's all I've seen on Snapzu so far). If you're going to be offended by Reddit, there is a LOT more out there to be offended by... And if you want an example of the internet tearing apart a CEO for poor business practices who isn't a woman or visible minority, look up Steve Ballmer.
I just made a post about what I was trying to say. It's not even about Ellen Pao necessarily. I can't reply to all the responses here individually so posting it here; some of you might wanna check it out.
I don't know much about the other subreddits you mentioned, but /r/watchpeopledie doesn't seem like it fits with them if they're of the hateful, exploitative variety. Graphic, gruesome, and horrifying content is posted in /r/watchpeopledie for sure, but its community generally isn't about glorifying or promoting violent death like it's a good thing (granted no one's all that bothered when an ISIS member gets killed). More often than not the comments have to do with the context of a given death or deaths (i.e. where, when, how, and why), where not to go/what not to do, how scary and/or messed up it would be to die and/or be killed in a certain way, and how fragile life is, not "hahahahahaha die motherfucker die!!!".
I thought about your comment, and you're right. It doesn't fit with the others. So I edited it out and replaced it with /r/punchablefaces.
I find it odd how OP is upset about the hate towards Ellen Pao, and yet supports the banning of FPH while so many more systematically oppressive subreddits were simply ignored. I would think that she would be upset that so, so, so many other, significantly more offensive subs still exist, while one that doesn't even target an oppressed minority was removed.
It's also worth mentioning that I have noticed maybe one slur-driven insult to every 20 or so justified criticisms, and I believe those insults are just people who are too lazy or uneducated to make a relevant comment (or maybe it's just the websites I frequent). But when we do come across it, the options are 1) ignore them, 2) educate them, or 3) get upset and feed their anger.
**I feel like I should note that I am neither supportive nor against the FPH subreddit - I wasn't subscribed to that sub, and I never went to /r/all so it literally doesn't affect me in any way. I do, however, oppose the CEO twisting and molding a community driven website to fit her own agenda, while at the same time treating the most active members of said community like an afterthought.
Yeah, /r/watchpeopledie isn't about hate or 'justice' or anything, it's morbid curiosity. It's for the people who ask 'What does a person look like after they get shot?'.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Ellen Pao without engaging in sexism or racism. Given the details of her career, she seems like a bad fit for the reddit community. But, I believe that she is pretty much being paid to be a scapegoat for investors wanting to see returns on their investment.
I think racism and sexism is disgusting, but I expect it and think that there should be platforms on which it is okay to express it. I also think it's perfectly acceptable to ban it on other platforms. You don't have to be okay with it. That's not what I'm saying.
But to reduce the dislike for Pao down to its crudest form is not doing justice to the situation.
You make a good point, but I don't think there is anything we can do. A large community like Reddit is bound to attract bad people with bad behaviour. A smaller community will be much more reasonable with its criticism, as you can see here on Snapzu. I don't think anyone here is okay with making racist and sexist remarks about Ellen Pao.
It's at least part of the reason I decided to check out Snapzu. There are a lot of racist and sexist and horrible people out there. When reddit gets big enough and becomes more representative of the general population, these people come out of the woodwork.
I really wish we could do more to eliminate that sort of thinking. It has to happen, but it'll take a long time and an obscene amount of work. For the time being, the only true recourse is to run away and group up with other rational people. (That's not to say Snapzu's community is inherently better than reddit's. Were this site to get as big as reddit, I'm sure we'd face the same problems. So it goes.)
Yup, and with that large a userbase there'd inevitably be some scandal where (pulling some super unlikely scenario out of nowhere) someone creates a tribe dedicated to posting sexualized pictures of minors. Then the Snapzu admins would have to step in and take it down or risk massive social or even legal repercussions, a small but loud segment of users would cry censorship and a chunk of the community would splinter off to the next platform (followed slowly by the rest of the users), and the cycle would repeat anew.
It'd be nice if we, the users of Snapzu, could put together a manifesto detailing what ethical atmosphere we want to maintain here. We could definitely learn from the mistakes of reddit regarding hate speech, sexualizing minors, etc. As long as it's made clear from the beginning that this isn't an anarchistic platform with 100% free speech, but still encouraging discussion from all walks of life, we shouldn't have a problem.
I agree with you that many of the comments about her on reddit are outright horrible. However, there is an underlying truth to the criticsm. Since she took over as a CEO the change in business strategy away from users and towards revenue-generating has been pretty obvious with less than desirable results for the users.
Many men in similar position of authority (politics, sports, business) who also think they're doing their job get way more or as much hatred as she does. But A) we're not used to see a woman/PoC's in a position of power, and B) we're used to think of women/PoC's as sort of "inherent victims". So when a woman/PoC is A) in a position of power and B) fucks up badly enough to get the same kind of hate a white man gets, we automatically fall back on our "inherent victim" prejudice and robs women/PoC of their ability to reap hate by their own actions like white men do; which is, ironically, both racist and sexist.
It wasn't even her decision to fire Victoria. After reading her announcements today and seeing how she is being downvoted everywhere I kind of feel for her. I didn't like her at first, but she is making good points and trying to address the community as best she can. Too bad this all came too late, as people's opinions against her has formed ever since the FPH drama.
At the end of the day she is the CEO and the face of Reddit. If Reddit fucks up, as in any other company the CEO will have to take responsibility. This fact along with her bad past reputation and slow response to this drama really drove people to hate her, in my opinion.
I'll be the first to say it: this woman gets far more hatred than she deserves. She thinks she's just doing her job. And there is so much racist and sexist bias against her all over reddit, as a fellow woman of color, it makes me supremely uncomfortable. :( Sure she's made some questionable choices like firing Victoria, but things like banning FPH I'm 100% behind. This must count as some form of cyber bullying, should it not? Sorry if my comment upsets anyone, but I really wish people would cut the woman some slack.
I have to disagree with you there. If this was Bill Gates or Tim Cook, people would want them out just as badly as they do Pao. Since she became interim CEO she's shown a compete lack of understanding of Reddit, it's core principals, and most importantly it's userbase. Her high-horse attitude hasn't helped her either, which is why a lot of people are viewing her apology with a lot of skepticism.
If she really want's to improve Reddit she needs to get her hands dirty and be a part of Reddit. Not a shmuck behind a desk dictating polices.
I understand where you are coming from, trust me I do. But food for thought: If it was Bill Gates would he have to endure the same kind of racial slurs and misogyny for his perceived incompetencies?
Nobody wants her out because she is a woman or a minority. They think she is incompetent, and in their attempt to criticize her, they fall back on petty insults (which is definitely A problem, just not the same problem.)
I think of it like getting cut off while driving. You might be angry at the driver, and yell insults based on age, race, gender, looks, baldness, big nose, whatever… You don't hate this person because they are say, bald, but it's the easy thing to pull out and insult with.
People hate her based on – paraphrasing Pao herself – 'behavior'.
To be fair, 1990's Bill Gates DID get a lot of flak for being an evil, loser nerd, a thief, a villain, (even a fee antichrist references that I can remember anyhow), etc. Maybe not sexism or racism as blatantly as Pao (which is sad, but angry people are stupid in large groups). But people all over the world hated Billy-G a lot more than on just one website, and they were vicious about it. Hell, many people still do.
Here's the thing: we already know about her history. We already know that she's married to a crook, and both are very ligitatious. She plays the gender card, and he plays the race card. We know that she knows nothing about Reddit or the technology involved in it.
So, starting out, most of the audience isn't going to be in her favor. And then after stumbling for 9 months with bad decisions, yeah, most of Reddit hates her. The reactions are fairly predictable, actually.
Honestly I haven't seen any of that on Reddit. But, maybe I've haven't been to the subreddit's where it's happening. My interests on there are mostly PC Gaming, My Little Pony, and Linux.
Hey, a couple of us have been starting up a pony community on here if you wanted to check it out. There's a /t/mylittlepony, /t/mlplounge, and mine.
Thanks. I had joined the MLP one, didn't know the lounge was on here as well.
Well it would be hard considering he is a different race and a he.
But the part I think you have wrong is that you suggest in your first post that racism and sexism is the root of the issue, and it is not. She is absolutely terrible at her job, and there are a bunch of idiots using race and sex based insults. I don't believe anyone over there has suggested she is terrible at her job because of her race or sex, but because of her actions.
I think making it out as if people are suggesting that, as your first post does, is equally disappointing but in a different way.
From this weekend's events, and her response, my intuition leads me to believe that "improving Reddit" is not her primary goal. Her initial efforts at damage control were directed toward the Mainstream Media. Only today did she get around to addressing the Reddit community.
Her actions make more sense if her goal is to groom Reddit for an Initial Public Offering, rather than keep users/contributors/moderators content...
I strongly disagree. I think the criticism she is receiving is well deserved. The issue wasn't with simply banning FPH, it was that other, significantly worse subs weren't banned. As a woman of color, I would think that you would be much more concerned with subs like: /r/CoonTown/, /r/Beatings/, /r/punchable_children/, /r/punchablefaces/, /r/TheRedPill/, /r/Beastiality/, or /r/spacedicks/ (among many more). If you're going to ban something, make sure you ACTUALLY ban it, don't just cherry pick to suit your own personal agenda. And in regards to the Victoria issue - the "black out" wasn't to show solidarity with her, it was primarily to protest the lack of communication between admins and mods, along with other, more sub-specific issues.
I've seen the generic racist and misogynistic comments towards her in Reddit threads, but it's hardly shocking when you look at who is upset (see the above list for reference). I've also read a lot of constructive and well justified arguments against her (in fact, that's all I've seen on Snapzu so far). If you're going to be offended by Reddit, there is a LOT more out there to be offended by... And if you want an example of the internet tearing apart a CEO for poor business practices who isn't a woman or visible minority, look up Steve Ballmer.
I just made a post about what I was trying to say. It's not even about Ellen Pao necessarily. I can't reply to all the responses here individually so posting it here; some of you might wanna check it out.
I don't know much about the other subreddits you mentioned, but /r/watchpeopledie doesn't seem like it fits with them if they're of the hateful, exploitative variety. Graphic, gruesome, and horrifying content is posted in /r/watchpeopledie for sure, but its community generally isn't about glorifying or promoting violent death like it's a good thing (granted no one's all that bothered when an ISIS member gets killed). More often than not the comments have to do with the context of a given death or deaths (i.e. where, when, how, and why), where not to go/what not to do, how scary and/or messed up it would be to die and/or be killed in a certain way, and how fragile life is, not "hahahahahaha die motherfucker die!!!".
I thought about your comment, and you're right. It doesn't fit with the others. So I edited it out and replaced it with /r/punchablefaces.
I find it odd how OP is upset about the hate towards Ellen Pao, and yet supports the banning of FPH while so many more systematically oppressive subreddits were simply ignored. I would think that she would be upset that so, so, so many other, significantly more offensive subs still exist, while one that doesn't even target an oppressed minority was removed.
It's also worth mentioning that I have noticed maybe one slur-driven insult to every 20 or so justified criticisms, and I believe those insults are just people who are too lazy or uneducated to make a relevant comment (or maybe it's just the websites I frequent). But when we do come across it, the options are 1) ignore them, 2) educate them, or 3) get upset and feed their anger.
**I feel like I should note that I am neither supportive nor against the FPH subreddit - I wasn't subscribed to that sub, and I never went to /r/all so it literally doesn't affect me in any way. I do, however, oppose the CEO twisting and molding a community driven website to fit her own agenda, while at the same time treating the most active members of said community like an afterthought.
Yeah, /r/watchpeopledie isn't about hate or 'justice' or anything, it's morbid curiosity. It's for the people who ask 'What does a person look like after they get shot?'.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Ellen Pao without engaging in sexism or racism. Given the details of her career, she seems like a bad fit for the reddit community. But, I believe that she is pretty much being paid to be a scapegoat for investors wanting to see returns on their investment.
But many people on reddit ARE engaging in racism and sexism; are we really supposed to be okay with that because we think she's bad at her job?
I think racism and sexism is disgusting, but I expect it and think that there should be platforms on which it is okay to express it. I also think it's perfectly acceptable to ban it on other platforms. You don't have to be okay with it. That's not what I'm saying.
But to reduce the dislike for Pao down to its crudest form is not doing justice to the situation.
Define "many". It's easy to generalize a large population like Reddit by seeing a few comments from the minority.
You make a good point, but I don't think there is anything we can do. A large community like Reddit is bound to attract bad people with bad behaviour. A smaller community will be much more reasonable with its criticism, as you can see here on Snapzu. I don't think anyone here is okay with making racist and sexist remarks about Ellen Pao.
It's at least part of the reason I decided to check out Snapzu. There are a lot of racist and sexist and horrible people out there. When reddit gets big enough and becomes more representative of the general population, these people come out of the woodwork.
I really wish we could do more to eliminate that sort of thinking. It has to happen, but it'll take a long time and an obscene amount of work. For the time being, the only true recourse is to run away and group up with other rational people. (That's not to say Snapzu's community is inherently better than reddit's. Were this site to get as big as reddit, I'm sure we'd face the same problems. So it goes.)
Yup, and with that large a userbase there'd inevitably be some scandal where (pulling some super unlikely scenario out of nowhere) someone creates a tribe dedicated to posting sexualized pictures of minors. Then the Snapzu admins would have to step in and take it down or risk massive social or even legal repercussions, a small but loud segment of users would cry censorship and a chunk of the community would splinter off to the next platform (followed slowly by the rest of the users), and the cycle would repeat anew.
It'd be nice if we, the users of Snapzu, could put together a manifesto detailing what ethical atmosphere we want to maintain here. We could definitely learn from the mistakes of reddit regarding hate speech, sexualizing minors, etc. As long as it's made clear from the beginning that this isn't an anarchistic platform with 100% free speech, but still encouraging discussion from all walks of life, we shouldn't have a problem.
I agree with you that many of the comments about her on reddit are outright horrible. However, there is an underlying truth to the criticsm. Since she took over as a CEO the change in business strategy away from users and towards revenue-generating has been pretty obvious with less than desirable results for the users.
Many men in similar position of authority (politics, sports, business) who also think they're doing their job get way more or as much hatred as she does. But A) we're not used to see a woman/PoC's in a position of power, and B) we're used to think of women/PoC's as sort of "inherent victims". So when a woman/PoC is A) in a position of power and B) fucks up badly enough to get the same kind of hate a white man gets, we automatically fall back on our "inherent victim" prejudice and robs women/PoC of their ability to reap hate by their own actions like white men do; which is, ironically, both racist and sexist.
It wasn't even her decision to fire Victoria. After reading her announcements today and seeing how she is being downvoted everywhere I kind of feel for her. I didn't like her at first, but she is making good points and trying to address the community as best she can. Too bad this all came too late, as people's opinions against her has formed ever since the FPH drama.
At the end of the day she is the CEO and the face of Reddit. If Reddit fucks up, as in any other company the CEO will have to take responsibility. This fact along with her bad past reputation and slow response to this drama really drove people to hate her, in my opinion.