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Here is the permalink to the comment made: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1ecxv https

Here is the permalink to the comment made: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1ecxv https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t... I'm very curious to see if Alexis is responsible for the firing, then shouldn't the backlash against Ellen Pao change to be against Alexis Ohanian?

xd1936 11y ago
This was my main takeaway from the article. Ellen's changes to hate speech rules caused some backlash, but it sounds like she had nothing to do with Victoria's firing.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  > Ellen's changes to hate speech rules caused some backlash What changes to "hate speech rules?" Reddit still allows hate speech. What they curtailed were subreddits who existed primarily to harass people both on and off the site (e.g. other Reddit users, YouTubers, game streamers, people with public Facebook profiles, random members of the public, the entire Imgur staff, several Reddit admins, you name it). That's why whenever this topic gets brought up people link to e.g. racist subreddits which still exist today, and then ask "well, why was XYZ banned, if those aren't?!" while entirely ignoring the fact that the banned subs were banned for HARASSMENT, not for having controversial opinions. Subs still exist with the same controversial opinions as those who got banned. The difference is that the mods in the ones which survived actively follow Reddit's rules and don't harass innocent people. The mods on the banned ones were actively involved in the harassment and frankly should have been banned.
  - xd1936 11y ago
    What changes to hate speech rules? These changes: https://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/ https://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removi... I agree, they should have and should continue to be banned. It still caused controversy. Yes, their reasoning is that these subs have users that leave their cesspools and harass other people.
    - Someone1234 11y ago
      > What changes to hate speech rules? These changes You linked to a page titled: "Removing harassing subreddits" that talks about harassment and doesn't contain the term "hate speech." Can you clarify why you think this has anything to do with hate speech rather than harassment?
- smacktoward 11y ago
  On the other hand, the CEO of a company should at least be vaguely aware of personnel changes that would affect strategic parts of their business. And AMAs are definitely strategic to Reddit. The question then becomes whether Pao didn't know about it because she wasn't paying attention to her business, or because Ohanian and/or other parties deliberately hid the information from her until after the proverbial stuff had hit the fan. I'd consider the latter a fireable offense, but YMMV.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    How do you know she didn't know about it? And what level of involvement do you expect a CEO to have in personnel decisions of random departments? You think Tim Cook hears about even 1% of the people Apple fires, or that Craig Federighi can't fire a senior manager directly below him on the org chart? From what's been said publicly by principals in the story, we know that Ohanian had taken the AMA section into his personal portfolio. By the way: that by itself is weird: the chairman doesn't usually have an operational role in the company, among other reasons because it's a conflict of interest. Regardless of who he was, he had ownership of the department Victoria Taylor worked in. In most well-managed companies, that makes hire/fire his prerogative, and coordination of personnel changes his responsibility. When people screw hire/fire up and cause disruption, the CEO normally fires or demotes them, and gets extra careful about future promotions and delegations to keep there from being a pattern of poor decisions about delegation. Here, neither thing was allowed to happen: Ohanian is effectively unfireable, and Pao wasn't given a chance to not delegate more stuff to him.
    - learc83 11y ago
      >You think Tim Cook hears about even 1% of the people Apple fires, or that Craig Federighi can't fire a senior manager directly below him on the org chart? I'm sure that she doesn't have to approve every dismissal, but there's a pretty big difference between Apple and Reddit. Last I heard Reddit only has a few dozen employees. I'd expect the CEO to know most of them by name.
      - 11y ago
theseatoms 11y ago
There's no way that the already-satiated angry mob about-faces like that. Though, I'd be impressed if it did.
mason55 11y ago
The backlash was centered around the lack of communication and heads up to the mod teams. We don't know if it was "she needs to be fired right now, immediately" or if it was "she is not a part of future plans". If it's the former then you can put the blame on Alexis but if Pao was not being pressured to fire her immediately then she could have in theory worked with the mod teams before letting Victoria go.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  Frankly, if the mod teams were this disrupted by a single employee's departure, that's at least partially their own fault. If she'd been hit by a bus or she'd had a personal/family emergency (hell, upcoming AMAs would've been potentially problematic even if her laptop just got stolen), they'd have been just as fucked - and no one to whine at. They failed miserably at disaster planning. They got very lucky they could shove the blame off on someone else.
  - learc83 11y ago
    They're unpaid volunteers, I don't know that anyone expects them to spend a lot of time on contingency planning.
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      They cared enough to throw a giant temper tantrum, they could've cared enough to have a Google Doc with the contact info of upcoming AMA participants. I really don't have much sympathy for them on this one.
tptacek 11y ago
Ohanian himself said he was responsible for the firing! There's no "if" here.
mason240 11y ago
Alexis has kind of always been unpopular on the site.
- efuquen 11y ago
  And yet he has never received the sort of backlash or vitriol that Pao has. I've always been up and down about how much gender and sexism has played a part in all this, outside that it a "small" minority of Reddit is influenced by it. But the idea that while not always popular but Alexis always seems to get a pass from the Reddit community (at least compared to how Pao was treated) is really telling.
joshstrange 11y ago
> I'm very curious to see if Alexis is responsible for the firing, then shouldn't the backlash against Ellen Pao change to be against Alexis Ohanian? Yes and no. Yes there should be outrage directed at him but the buck ultimately stops with the CEO and the firing was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. I have not doubt Alexis shares some of the blame but Pao had failed the moderators and the community at large in other ways and her leaving was probably best for Reddit.
- gkoberger 11y ago
  Don't forget that Alexis is both above AND below Pao in the org chart. He's an employee, but also is the Chairman of the Board. EDIT: Sources that Alexis reported to Ellen Pao: From Alexis: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1fsoi https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t... From u/kickme444 (previous employee; fired last month): https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1fbh4 https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...
  - efuquen 11y ago
    The Board is the CEO's boss, and he is the leader of the board, I think it's pretty straight forward. I guess I'm not sure of what you mean by he is also 'below' her on the org chart? Regardless of whatever responsibilities he held at Reddit that might be below the CEO that never changes the fact that he is Executive Chairman of the Board, which should completely clear up any ambiguity of authority. EDIT: Thanks for clearing up this those comment links. But, my original sentiment still stands in terms of the power dynamic being clear. Just because in some capacities he is under her doesn't diminish his ability to influence her firing/hiring. If anything being in that position could prompt him to take action as a board member because he didn't like decisions she made in his role working under her. And I think Alexis mentioning that is him trying to divert attention away from the real power he actually has.
rodgerd 11y ago
Alexis isn't a woman

xd1936 11y ago

This was my main takeaway from the article. Ellen's changes to hate speech rules caused some backlash, but it sounds like she had nothing to do with Victoria's firing.

Someone1234 11y ago
> Ellen's changes to hate speech rules caused some backlash What changes to "hate speech rules?" Reddit still allows hate speech. What they curtailed were subreddits who existed primarily to harass people both on and off the site (e.g. other Reddit users, YouTubers, game streamers, people with public Facebook profiles, random members of the public, the entire Imgur staff, several Reddit admins, you name it). That's why whenever this topic gets brought up people link to e.g. racist subreddits which still exist today, and then ask "well, why was XYZ banned, if those aren't?!" while entirely ignoring the fact that the banned subs were banned for HARASSMENT, not for having controversial opinions. Subs still exist with the same controversial opinions as those who got banned. The difference is that the mods in the ones which survived actively follow Reddit's rules and don't harass innocent people. The mods on the banned ones were actively involved in the harassment and frankly should have been banned.
- xd1936 11y ago
  What changes to hate speech rules? These changes: https://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/ https://np.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removi... I agree, they should have and should continue to be banned. It still caused controversy. Yes, their reasoning is that these subs have users that leave their cesspools and harass other people.
  - Someone1234 11y ago
    > What changes to hate speech rules? These changes You linked to a page titled: "Removing harassing subreddits" that talks about harassment and doesn't contain the term "hate speech." Can you clarify why you think this has anything to do with hate speech rather than harassment?
smacktoward 11y ago
On the other hand, the CEO of a company should at least be vaguely aware of personnel changes that would affect strategic parts of their business. And AMAs are definitely strategic to Reddit. The question then becomes whether Pao didn't know about it because she wasn't paying attention to her business, or because Ohanian and/or other parties deliberately hid the information from her until after the proverbial stuff had hit the fan. I'd consider the latter a fireable offense, but YMMV.
- tptacek 11y ago
  How do you know she didn't know about it? And what level of involvement do you expect a CEO to have in personnel decisions of random departments? You think Tim Cook hears about even 1% of the people Apple fires, or that Craig Federighi can't fire a senior manager directly below him on the org chart? From what's been said publicly by principals in the story, we know that Ohanian had taken the AMA section into his personal portfolio. By the way: that by itself is weird: the chairman doesn't usually have an operational role in the company, among other reasons because it's a conflict of interest. Regardless of who he was, he had ownership of the department Victoria Taylor worked in. In most well-managed companies, that makes hire/fire his prerogative, and coordination of personnel changes his responsibility. When people screw hire/fire up and cause disruption, the CEO normally fires or demotes them, and gets extra careful about future promotions and delegations to keep there from being a pattern of poor decisions about delegation. Here, neither thing was allowed to happen: Ohanian is effectively unfireable, and Pao wasn't given a chance to not delegate more stuff to him.
  - learc83 11y ago
    >You think Tim Cook hears about even 1% of the people Apple fires, or that Craig Federighi can't fire a senior manager directly below him on the org chart? I'm sure that she doesn't have to approve every dismissal, but there's a pretty big difference between Apple and Reddit. Last I heard Reddit only has a few dozen employees. I'd expect the CEO to know most of them by name.
    - 11y ago

theseatoms 11y ago

There's no way that the already-satiated angry mob about-faces like that. Though, I'd be impressed if it did.

mason55 11y ago

The backlash was centered around the lack of communication and heads up to the mod teams. We don't know if it was "she needs to be fired right now, immediately" or if it was "she is not a part of future plans". If it's the former then you can put the blame on Alexis but if Pao was not being pressured to fire her immediately then she could have in theory worked with the mod teams before letting Victoria go.

ceejayoz 11y ago
Frankly, if the mod teams were this disrupted by a single employee's departure, that's at least partially their own fault. If she'd been hit by a bus or she'd had a personal/family emergency (hell, upcoming AMAs would've been potentially problematic even if her laptop just got stolen), they'd have been just as fucked - and no one to whine at. They failed miserably at disaster planning. They got very lucky they could shove the blame off on someone else.
- learc83 11y ago
  They're unpaid volunteers, I don't know that anyone expects them to spend a lot of time on contingency planning.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    They cared enough to throw a giant temper tantrum, they could've cared enough to have a Google Doc with the contact info of upcoming AMA participants. I really don't have much sympathy for them on this one.

tptacek 11y ago

Ohanian himself said he was responsible for the firing! There's no "if" here.

mason240 11y ago

Alexis has kind of always been unpopular on the site.

efuquen 11y ago
And yet he has never received the sort of backlash or vitriol that Pao has. I've always been up and down about how much gender and sexism has played a part in all this, outside that it a "small" minority of Reddit is influenced by it. But the idea that while not always popular but Alexis always seems to get a pass from the Reddit community (at least compared to how Pao was treated) is really telling.

joshstrange 11y ago

> I'm very curious to see if Alexis is responsible for the firing, then shouldn't the backlash against Ellen Pao change to be against Alexis Ohanian? Yes and no. Yes there should be outrage directed at him but the buck ultimately stops with the CEO and the firing was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. I have not doubt Alexis shares some of the blame but Pao had failed the moderators and the community at large in other ways and her leaving was probably best for Reddit.

gkoberger 11y ago
Don't forget that Alexis is both above AND below Pao in the org chart. He's an employee, but also is the Chairman of the Board. EDIT: Sources that Alexis reported to Ellen Pao: From Alexis: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1fsoi https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t... From u/kickme444 (previous employee; fired last month): https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0thing_says_he_was_responsible_for_the_change/ct1fbh4 https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...
- efuquen 11y ago
  The Board is the CEO's boss, and he is the leader of the board, I think it's pretty straight forward. I guess I'm not sure of what you mean by he is also 'below' her on the org chart? Regardless of whatever responsibilities he held at Reddit that might be below the CEO that never changes the fact that he is Executive Chairman of the Board, which should completely clear up any ambiguity of authority. EDIT: Thanks for clearing up this those comment links. But, my original sentiment still stands in terms of the power dynamic being clear. Just because in some capacities he is under her doesn't diminish his ability to influence her firing/hiring. If anything being in that position could prompt him to take action as a board member because he didn't like decisions she made in his role working under her. And I think Alexis mentioning that is him trying to divert attention away from the real power he actually has.

rodgerd 11y ago

Alexis isn't a woman