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Jesse Jackson had an AMA that did not go very well. Several of the most upvoted questions were simply disrespectful. The Reverend's answers were mostly boiler
by chernevik 11y ago
Jesse Jackson had an AMA that did not go very well. Several of the most upvoted questions were simply disrespectful. The Reverend's answers were mostly boilerplate and often unresponsive to the question. The AMA seems to have been part of some PR rollout -- Mother Jones had an article three days ago about Jackson taking on Silicon Valley. The event seems to have failed the rollout's objectives.
Not a great moment for anyone: The AMA didn't always feature the Reddit community at its best, but the Reverend didn't show at all well under the spotlight of Radical Transparency.
Given all that, the timing and speed of the admin's firing hardly seems coincidental. Reddit seems to have blown up a number of ongoing events, and upset an important chunk of its community, which hardly suggests that her firing relates to some long-term issue.
I can see why Reddit might feel the event wasn't handled well.
But it is also very plausible that Jackson and his camp were deeply embarrassed, and insisted that someone be punished for that. So plausible, in fact, that I think Reddit really should give some account that demonstrates that this is _not_ what happened -- or admit that it did.
It is very surprising that this whole thing hasn't gotten more coverage in the tech press.
- koko775 11y agoI'm pretty certain AMA disasters do not qualify as fireable. And firing the facilitator with a history of good AMAs for that reason is hardly an appropriate remedy even if that is so.
- contravariant 11y agoIt all seems like a pretty bad case of shooting the messenger.
- pgrote 11y agoListen, I just want to talk about Rampart.
- dsr_ 11y ago(Translation for the reddit-impaired: Woody Harrelson came to IAMA trying to do publicity for his movie Rampart. His cluelessness and apparent entitlement nearly blotted out the sun.)
- selimthegrim 11y agoDid anyone bring up his father?
- brobinson 11y agoI believe that was actually Woody's PR agent, right?
- chernevik 11y agoShouldn't. But see this exchange in the archive (https://archive.is/jouWQ#selection-17025.0-17025.134 https://archive.is/jouWQ#selection-17025.0-17025.134) 'Have you felt regretful for rushing to judgement after condemning the "perpetrators" of the Duke lacrosse rape scandal during 2006-07?' 'No, the pattern is consistent. And we never want injustice to occur. But the pattern is fairly obvious, and a very obvious pattern that must be ended.' The Reverend isn't interested in fairness to individuals, he's interested in "patterns". If he feels himself subjected to a pattern he feels unfair, well, fairness to any individual is less important than ending that pattern. The Reverend is not the guy you'd want arguing with Yahweh to spare Sodom and Gomorrah lest He unjustly punish the innocent with the guilty.
- kelukelugames 11y agoMy heart goes out to the athletes ruined by the scandal. There is another point of view. Something us Internet commenters don't often realize. Do you have any black friends who was at Duke during that time? Ask them to describe it.
- oh_sigh 11y agoHow about you describe it for us, instead of making us hunt down one of approximately 600 people in the world.
- kelukelugames 11y agoThat's a good ask. I wasn't trying to be snarky. I really don't understand it that well and I don't think it means as much coming from an Asian person. And honestly I'm not comfortable arguing about it on a public forum.
- oh_sigh 11y agoWell, I didn't take it for being snarky. I also don't want to engage in any kind of argument, I just want to hear about the point you were trying to make. You even said it was "something us Internet commenters don't often realize", so this would be a great forum to share the viewpoint, since it is almost by definition filled with internetters
- lawnchair_larry 11y agoPeople rarely get fired for fireable things. They get fired because management doesn't like them, and were waiting for any excuse.
- ForEnglandJames 11y agoReally? A social justice warrior wanting to take on Silicon Valley and getting a leg up from Chairman Pao? How delicious. Why is no one covering this?
- mhomde 11y agoI'd be surprised if it was about that (at least only) and not more about reddit wanting to bring AMA's back to a team at their SF office rather than NY... but your guess is as good as mine
- nadams 11y ago> Jesse Jackson had an AMA that did not go very well. Several of the most upvoted questions were simply disrespectful. I think anyone could have seen that coming. Anonymous accounts with community voting and an API to boot? This is only asking for trouble - especially if the AMA was done by an individual who wasn't familiar with the personality of the community or internet etiquette in general. Assuming every other AMA was respectful/successful - they were just playing a game of russian roulette. I'm surprised that celebrities even want to go on reddit - don't get wrong I love the idea of an exchange of comments between the common person and famous people but I certainly wouldn't want to do it on an anonymous posting site. Edit: To the downvoters - I should point out that assuming that reddit has automated systems in place to detect fraudulent voting - someone with a botnet could easily defeat it. It's easy to detect when the same guy is upvotting posts from the same IP or same block of IPs - how do you detect that when the voting are coming from all over the world? It doesn't even have to be a botnet - how do you know that the android/ios game you just downloaded isn't making web service calls in the background to a site like reddit? If I was a bad guy - I would definitely outsource development of some useful app or game and embed my upvoting code into that once it becomes popular.
- baddox 11y agoPlenty of AMAs go really well, so you definitely need to look for a cause other than the fact that reddit has anonymous accounts and community voting.
- kelukelugames 11y agoPeople seem to hate Jesse Jackson on HN too. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jesse%20jackson&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jesse%20jackson&sort=byPopular...
- Crito 11y agoYeah, if we are being honest here, we can all stop pretending to wonder why the AMA went bad. It went bad because people just don't like the guy.
- Uhhrrr 11y agoI don't think the questions were overly disrespectful. It's an Ask Me Anything, not an Ask Me Respectful Things. And it's not the first time someone has called him a shakedown artist or mentioned his out-of-wedlock child.
- slg 11y ago>Mr. Jackson, You are an immoral, hate-filled race baiter that has figured out how to manipulate the political system for your own gain. You've personally set back race relations year after year and continue to do more harm than good. Extorting money from companies to line your pockets and threatening to bus in protestors and create a fake racial controversy if they don’t agree to pay you off is NOT civil rights activism. My question is simple; how is your relationship with the illegitimate child you fathered in 1998 while cheating on your wife? Bonus question: How much money have you extorted from various people and companies over the years of practicing your shakedown scheme? Do you think Al Capone would be jealous of your business model if he were still alive? That is the "best" question according to Reddit's sorting algorithm. I think that easily qualifies as "overly disrespectful". It one thing to ask tough questions. It is another to call a man an immoral race baiter, say he set back his cause years, call him an extortionist, chastise him for an affair, and then insinuate he is worse than one of the most notorious criminals in US history all within a single paragraph. That isn't a question, it is a personal attack. I sadly don't think it is surprising that a comment like that is posted. But it is a black eye on the Reddit community that it was upvoted more than any other question in the AMA.
- pbreit 11y agoI bet he could have answered it in a charming way, though. That's what people like him are supposed to do.
- zxcvcxz 11y agoThe question was on point though. It was a tough question and it hurt, but the guy isn't just "some guy" he goes on TV almost every night to push his political agenda. He was called out for being a hypocrite and people in his position deserve to be called out for being hypocritical, deceitful, and manipulative. None of this is anything new though, it's widely accepted that Jackson is a demagogue.
- fredkbloggs 11y agoIf you are a public figure, it is your (really, your manager's or agent's) responsibility to manage your image. An important part of that is deciding which engagements are good opportunities for you and which are not. It is also your own responsibility to be prepared for an engagement to go poorly -- unexpected/negative questions, hecklers, etc -- and have a plan in place for how to respond to that. If you're not willing or able to do these things, you should decline invitations like this and live privately. Or at the very least, don't complain when you don't get the result you were hoping for when you accepted. I think it's pretty forseeable that an AMA would likely result in a lot of uncomfortable questions for a highly controversial figure like Rev. Jackson. That can be an opportunity, or it can be a disaster. It does not seem that he was properly prepared for it either way. That's not Reddit's fault nor Chooter's; it's his. All that said, it's clear that Reddit is not a well-managed company, and this appears to have gotten worse since they hired Ellen Pao. So it's certainly possible that the people calling the shots over there don't get it, or are trying to reimagine Reddit as something it is not. If that's so, then your theory is entirely plausible. But it still doesn't explain the lack of communication or any semblance of a backup plan. If you're employing someone who has no alternate, and you have no plan in place to transfer that person's duties, the only reason to fire that person on the spot is that they're committing felonies directly related to the company or its business. Anything else -- and I do mean anything else; I don't care if they took a giant shit right on your desk -- can wait 24 business hours while you get some kind of continuity plan in place. As a manager, if you can't control your own anger or impetuousness well enough to avoid torpedoing your own business out of spite, you don't belong in your role. Ellen Pao, we're looking at you.
- pyre 11y agoDespite your own image / plans being your own responsibility, it's not like there aren't people with public profiles (celebs, politicians, etc) out there who are vindictive over failed PR events.
- sentenza 11y agoI think I have a plausible explanation (please beware, this is 100% conjecture). Hypothesis 1: Jackson's AMA went badly, he/his team was specifically pissed at Victoria and demanded consequences, threatening a public campaign against reddit. Hypothesis 2: Conde Nast is not happy about the public perception of reddit as the biggest blob of hate on the Internet. So they might have given them a "one more headline news scandal" ultimatum. In that situation, there are no winners, only losers, there is nothing to gain and there isn't even a 100% guilty party.
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- ThrustVectoring 11y agoReddit admin's recent decisions have painted an impression that they think that administrative actions are favors to hand out to their personal social group. Like, it's the explanation that makes sense both for this as well as the banning of /r/neofag.
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- jammi 11y agoIn case someone is wondering how bad the AMA was, it was this bad: https://archive.is/jouWQ https://archive.is/jouWQ