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You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money? Neither Reddit nor journalism generally is par

by eli 11y ago

You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money? Neither Reddit nor journalism generally is particularly profitable. And isn't painting all of the media in the same cynical light for the actions of, at most, a small minority pretty much exactly what you claim they did to you? I saw racist and sexist posts personally, so I know that's not a complete fabrication even if not every Redditor holds those beliefs. I found the posts of e.g. Pao as Hitler pretty jarring. If I were writing an article about Reddit and its CEO I probably would have mentioned them, not through any desire to stir trouble and certainly not as part of some money-making conspiracy. And what does any of this have to do with Sam Altman or Ellen Pao?

Anderkent 11y ago
> And isn't painting all of the media in the same cynical light for the actions of, at most, a small minority pretty much exactly what you claim they did to you? Of course. No one's evil, everything's broken. The reason offensive and controversial discussions are so common throughout the interent is that they self-perpetuate; something makes you angry and you make a post 'debunking' it, that makes someone else angry and they reply; the more efficient posts at making people angry get more replies, and so are brought into prominence. Thus the virus spreads.
scrollaway 11y ago
> You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money? GP isn't implying any collusion. The media is intentionally causing confrontation just fine on its own. > I saw racist and sexist posts personally Nobody is claiming the hateful stuff didn't exist. But painting "Reddit" as sexist while conveniently ignoring the 90-9-1 rule and focusing on Pao's gender instead of atrocious track record is... in bad taste, to say the least.
- eli 11y ago
  It's jarring -- that is, newsworthy -- to see overt sexist or racist remarks with hundreds of upvotes, suggesting at least widespread if not majority support. So, yeah, that fact is going to find its way into many articles. What is the argument against Pao anyway? It seems like the only non-personal complaints I've heard are that FatPeopleHate was banned and a well-liked moderator was fired on her watch. Is there more to it?
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    Victoria's firing was the final straw. The general complaint is that moderators are in an abusive unpaid relationship with reddit and are treated like crap, that she is/was completely out of touch with the reddit userbase (going so far as posting a link to her own inbox in /r/self in a grandma-emailing-c:\\paths.jpg fashion; something she later explained as an administrative mishap), that she got rid of well-liked programs such as redditgifts and was behind other much less popular programs and very unpopular decisions on the site. And the whole lawsuit thing didn't help, either. She doesn't deserve the blame for all of it, but things easily snowball on reddit. Once the mob finds its pitchforks, there's no stopping it. That's not unique to reddit in any way.
    - chaostheory 11y ago
      redditgifts seems to be online... are they not affiliated with reddit anymore?
  - AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
    There's lots more to it. While I agree with the banning of FPH, the underlying policy that justified it was deeply flawed. The harassment policy was woefully vague to the point of absurdity. There's the fact that she promised better moderator tools something like 6 months ago, and as we found out today, only last week dedicated employees to work on it; after the defaults revolted. This is a small subset of all of the complaints of reddit's direction under Pao's leadership. Honestly, I think she's a lovely person. I don't think she deserves a percent of the shit that's been thrown her way, but she definitely hasn't been an efficient CEO for reddit.
    - magicalist 11y ago
      > There's lots more to it and by lots you mean...that's about it. Honestly if "There's the fact that she promised better moderator tools something like 6 months ago" was a good criteria for booting a CEO, Reddit would have had ~20 CEOs by now. That was the actual problem, that mods have never had the tools they need, but that's not why she's resigning/being fired.
- CountSessine 11y ago
  GP isn't implying any collusion. The media is intentionally causing confrontation just fine on its own. Do you have any evidence of this? atrocious track record Like what? That she shut down a forum called "Fat people hate", where posters singled out the obese for vicious, personal online harrassment? is... in bad taste, to say the least Do you even understand what that means? Criticising Reddit or its community is in bad taste? Seriously?
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    > Like what? That she shut down a forum called "Fat people hate", where posters singled out the obese for online harrassment? You don't know me. You have no idea what my feelings are regarding FPH. Yet, you make assumptions. So now we got that out of the way, hi, I'm Jerry, and I hated FPH and didn't give a rat's arse about its shutdown. Had Pao made only that one decision in her two years as CEO, reddit would have bigger problems on its hands. Thankfully, I just wrote a reply to someone else's comment right below yours - a much nicer comment which asks a question without making aggressive assumptions - addressing your actual question. Take a look. > Criticising Reddit or its community is in bad taste? Seriously? The thing with rephrasing what someone else said and appending "Seriously?" is it always goes your way, because you get to decide how you rephrase it. Good thing again that I didn't say "Criticising Reddit or its community is in bad taste". I said: > painting "Reddit" as sexist while conveniently ignoring the 90-9-1 rule and focusing on Pao's gender instead of atrocious track record [is in bad taste]. In other words, trying to turn millions of people into sexist pigs by ignoring how such communities function is in bad taste. Do you disagree?
    - tomjakubowski 11y ago
      > Had Pao made only that one decision in her two years as CEO, reddit would have bigger problems on its hands. Pao wasn't CEO for even a full year.
      - scrollaway 11y ago
        You're right, I was confused because she joined reddit in 2013. My comment still applies.
Shivetya 11y ago
did you happen to miss how sites like the NYTimes and such were disappointed with how her case played out? How that and and another played out? They have their playbook and cannot see outside of it to the point they are no longer able to see the world for what it is. Social Justice has infected the media to the point that anything contrary to the desired story is either ignored, recast, or dismissed. You can go google the Confederate flag issue and find far too many stories trying to link Republicans with it when it was Democrat politicians who put it up fifty years ago and kept it there; apparently it was just too good an opportunity to slander the Republicans for something the Democrats didn't fix for the fifty plus years they controlled most of those states. So yeah, the media intentionally causes confrontation and likely because the same focus groups they use/rely on are merely political machines created to drive people one way or another. Politicians and the media both need a divided population and they both damn well do their best to get it.
dj_axl 11y ago
> I saw racist and sexist posts personally Honestly Reddit in general could be taken as "racist and sexist" by an outsider. By an outsider. The humor tends to be sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top, and in-group. For example any references to /r/pyongyang can be written off, 99% of the time it's part of a dedicated running joke that's not intentionally malicious. Pao as Hitler is jarring? You seem naively unfamiliar with Reddit.
- eli 11y ago
  > Honestly Reddit in general could be taken as "racist and sexist" by an outsider. Yeah. That's a problem. Probably Reddit's biggest problem.

by eli 11y ago

Anderkent 11y ago

> And isn't painting all of the media in the same cynical light for the actions of, at most, a small minority pretty much exactly what you claim they did to you? Of course. No one's evil, everything's broken. The reason offensive and controversial discussions are so common throughout the interent is that they self-perpetuate; something makes you angry and you make a post 'debunking' it, that makes someone else angry and they reply; the more efficient posts at making people angry get more replies, and so are brought into prominence. Thus the virus spreads.

scrollaway 11y ago

> You think "the media" is intentionally causing confrontation as part of some collusion with Reddit to make money? GP isn't implying any collusion. The media is intentionally causing confrontation just fine on its own. > I saw racist and sexist posts personally Nobody is claiming the hateful stuff didn't exist. But painting "Reddit" as sexist while conveniently ignoring the 90-9-1 rule and focusing on Pao's gender instead of atrocious track record is... in bad taste, to say the least.

eli 11y ago
It's jarring -- that is, newsworthy -- to see overt sexist or racist remarks with hundreds of upvotes, suggesting at least widespread if not majority support. So, yeah, that fact is going to find its way into many articles. What is the argument against Pao anyway? It seems like the only non-personal complaints I've heard are that FatPeopleHate was banned and a well-liked moderator was fired on her watch. Is there more to it?
- scrollaway 11y ago
  Victoria's firing was the final straw. The general complaint is that moderators are in an abusive unpaid relationship with reddit and are treated like crap, that she is/was completely out of touch with the reddit userbase (going so far as posting a link to her own inbox in /r/self in a grandma-emailing-c:\\paths.jpg fashion; something she later explained as an administrative mishap), that she got rid of well-liked programs such as redditgifts and was behind other much less popular programs and very unpopular decisions on the site. And the whole lawsuit thing didn't help, either. She doesn't deserve the blame for all of it, but things easily snowball on reddit. Once the mob finds its pitchforks, there's no stopping it. That's not unique to reddit in any way.
  - chaostheory 11y ago
    redditgifts seems to be online... are they not affiliated with reddit anymore?
- AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
  There's lots more to it. While I agree with the banning of FPH, the underlying policy that justified it was deeply flawed. The harassment policy was woefully vague to the point of absurdity. There's the fact that she promised better moderator tools something like 6 months ago, and as we found out today, only last week dedicated employees to work on it; after the defaults revolted. This is a small subset of all of the complaints of reddit's direction under Pao's leadership. Honestly, I think she's a lovely person. I don't think she deserves a percent of the shit that's been thrown her way, but she definitely hasn't been an efficient CEO for reddit.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > There's lots more to it and by lots you mean...that's about it. Honestly if "There's the fact that she promised better moderator tools something like 6 months ago" was a good criteria for booting a CEO, Reddit would have had ~20 CEOs by now. That was the actual problem, that mods have never had the tools they need, but that's not why she's resigning/being fired.
CountSessine 11y ago
GP isn't implying any collusion. The media is intentionally causing confrontation just fine on its own. Do you have any evidence of this? atrocious track record Like what? That she shut down a forum called "Fat people hate", where posters singled out the obese for vicious, personal online harrassment? is... in bad taste, to say the least Do you even understand what that means? Criticising Reddit or its community is in bad taste? Seriously?
- scrollaway 11y ago
  > Like what? That she shut down a forum called "Fat people hate", where posters singled out the obese for online harrassment? You don't know me. You have no idea what my feelings are regarding FPH. Yet, you make assumptions. So now we got that out of the way, hi, I'm Jerry, and I hated FPH and didn't give a rat's arse about its shutdown. Had Pao made only that one decision in her two years as CEO, reddit would have bigger problems on its hands. Thankfully, I just wrote a reply to someone else's comment right below yours - a much nicer comment which asks a question without making aggressive assumptions - addressing your actual question. Take a look. > Criticising Reddit or its community is in bad taste? Seriously? The thing with rephrasing what someone else said and appending "Seriously?" is it always goes your way, because you get to decide how you rephrase it. Good thing again that I didn't say "Criticising Reddit or its community is in bad taste". I said: > painting "Reddit" as sexist while conveniently ignoring the 90-9-1 rule and focusing on Pao's gender instead of atrocious track record [is in bad taste]. In other words, trying to turn millions of people into sexist pigs by ignoring how such communities function is in bad taste. Do you disagree?
  - tomjakubowski 11y ago
    > Had Pao made only that one decision in her two years as CEO, reddit would have bigger problems on its hands. Pao wasn't CEO for even a full year.
    - scrollaway 11y ago
      You're right, I was confused because she joined reddit in 2013. My comment still applies.

Shivetya 11y ago

did you happen to miss how sites like the NYTimes and such were disappointed with how her case played out? How that and and another played out? They have their playbook and cannot see outside of it to the point they are no longer able to see the world for what it is. Social Justice has infected the media to the point that anything contrary to the desired story is either ignored, recast, or dismissed. You can go google the Confederate flag issue and find far too many stories trying to link Republicans with it when it was Democrat politicians who put it up fifty years ago and kept it there; apparently it was just too good an opportunity to slander the Republicans for something the Democrats didn't fix for the fifty plus years they controlled most of those states. So yeah, the media intentionally causes confrontation and likely because the same focus groups they use/rely on are merely political machines created to drive people one way or another. Politicians and the media both need a divided population and they both damn well do their best to get it.

dj_axl 11y ago

> I saw racist and sexist posts personally Honestly Reddit in general could be taken as "racist and sexist" by an outsider. By an outsider. The humor tends to be sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top, and in-group. For example any references to /r/pyongyang can be written off, 99% of the time it's part of a dedicated running joke that's not intentionally malicious. Pao as Hitler is jarring? You seem naively unfamiliar with Reddit.

eli 11y ago
> Honestly Reddit in general could be taken as "racist and sexist" by an outsider. Yeah. That's a problem. Probably Reddit's biggest problem.