I don’t think regulators will do it the right way, though. It’s been almost four years since Pao led Reddit. “We screwed up,” Pao conceded in an announcement posted on Reddit. We know they have tons of talent. Copyright © 2020 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. Truth #6: The only thing that can save us is…us. Regulation will give them an excuse to take on people and their bad behavior in a way that they wouldn’t have to explain and defend and perhaps they wouldn’t get as much abuse heaped on them, so they kind of have the justification out of their hands. She’s not confident that they will. We need to look at what metrics we should be tracking and maybe that’s a way to regulate. But to improve on its business goals, Reddit the company can't afford to alienate Reddit the community. You say anything and people are all over you. Here's Why We Did It, You can unsubscribe at any time. EP: I think it’s fascinating that at the largest platforms we don’t have people of color, women of color—and really not very many women—on the boards, on executive teams. She brought focus to chaos, recruited a world-class team of executives, and drove growth. As of Tuesday, a public petition on social justice platform Change.org demanding Pao’s resignation had garnered close to 200,000 signatures. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. On June 10, 2015, a post on Reddit, signed by Pao and two other executives, announced that five subreddits were being banned for fostering off-site harassment. The fact that revenge porn is no longer allowed, we started that at Reddit. EP: I can’t tell. If that’s what Twitter and Reddit are trying to have, then you’ve gotta get rid of people who are shouting people out of the public square, who are really bullying people. And if you think journalism like Mother Jones'—that calls it like it is, that will never acquiesce to power, that looks where others don't—can help guide us through this historic, high-stakes moment, and you're able to right now, please help us reach our $350,000 goal by October 31 with a donation today. But they haven’t stamped it out to the extent that other types of harmful content have been sidelined. They looked myopically at their own sites. There’s been this philosophy of “If we allow them to flourish under sunlight, we can convince these people and change their minds, or at least we know what we’re up against.” Actually, that was wrong. Reddit continues to struggle with where to draw the line on the popular The_Donald subreddit, home to a xenophobic and sometimes harassing group of Trump supporters, and has been unable to stop abusive behavior like brigading, where groups coordinate large troll campaigns by targeting and infiltrating other communities. That was an easy way to ban people because we have this strong privacy orientation. But when the platform CEOs allow it and it doesn’t get taken down… the only thing that causes people to take content down is reporters writing about it. Part of me hopes that the CEOs actually do want to do something about it and it is the fear of their users that limit them—fear of their boards, fear of investors—that prevents them from doing the right thing and keeping all their users safe. The platforms didn’t really consider what was going on on other platforms. Are there are new things in this? My guess is that there’s a lot of fear of people who are running and using The_Donald. MJ: Do you think there are different ways companies can address toxicity on their platforms? Part of it is usage: It’s hard to take down a subreddit which is driving a lot of traffic. Are there are subreddits or communities you’d be looking to take enforcement action on right off the bat? It’s changed from what I can see, but Reddit, when I was there, we were super, super oriented around privacy. The petition, which was posted weeks before Taylor’s dismissal, accuses Pao of censorship and driving the website’s traffic into the ground. MJ: How do these issues get better? All Rights Reserved. He called Huffman, Reddit’s new CEO, a “focused and thoughtful” person capable of aiding Reddit in that effort. We actually help these groups and ideas that are antithetical to our values proliferate. EP: Yeah, maybe 7, 8 years ago. We are thankful for Ellen’s many contributions to reddit and the technology industry generally. ", 'I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly on Reddit.'. Reddit the company can’t afford to alienate Reddit the community. Thinking about the recent suicides among the people from Parkland and the father from Sandy Hook, this ongoing harassment and abuse has an impact on people. You have to make sure everyone has the space to speak—and make sure that the speech isn’t causing damage—and that’s not happening right now. We could say ‘Hey, you’re not allowed to share people’s private addresses’ and you’d get rid of a lot of bad behavior there. It’s become so widespread. . There are these things you’re sharing that you don’t realize you’re sharing. On Monday, Pao took to Reddit to apologize for how Taylor's firing was handled, as well as years of mismanagement and poor communication between the company and the band of unpaid volunteer moderators who keep the site going. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. That’s not a conversation. I don’t know though…It’s just gotten so messy. Pope Francis Offers New Support for Same-Sex Unions, U.S. MJ: I’ve noticed brigading going on where you have different people coordinating raids on a different group, stifling conversations. That doesn’t work. I was curious to get your take as someone who made key decisions to start banning these types of toxic subreddits. I think there is one or two, but you don’t hear that much about them. And they thrive. The mods and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of reddit.”, Pao came under fire over the weekend when Reddit moderators — who are community volunteers, not company employees — began protesting the unexpected dismissal of Reddit’s director of talent, Victoria Taylor. I know people have talked about that a lot in regard to privacy, but does it make sense with content moderation too? We talk about the lack of diversity in tech companies; our government is getting better but it’s not super diverse either. All Rights Reserved. Are there metrics we should be tracking around the hate and around the harassment on these sites that help us know if things are getting better or worse and if companies are investing the right amount to prevent this? I haven’t had to deal with as many privacy issues because of that. Yesterday, Ellen Pao stepped down as CEO of Reddit. How much culpability do you think those types of places have in this ecosystem? "You guys were one of the outlets who got singled out to balance the ledger": That's what a former Facebook employee told Monika Bauerlein and me as we dug into recent news that the platform was throttling traffic to certain publishers, including Mother Jones. “I and the team are committed to talking more often with the community, starting now.”. They want to protect themselves, but it’s really hard to have a open-minded conversation with both sides. Our conversation happened not long after the killings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a shooter whose internet behavior and manifesto left little doubt he had been radicalized online. I had to for my work at Reddit because of the cross-platform nature of the harassment. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20) and Your California Privacy Rights. I can’t imagine losing someone and having people say “they’re alive” and that I’m a liar as I’m trying to grieve and overcome what is probably the most horrible experience of my life. Is there a particular reason for that? In an interview with WIRED, Altman acknowledged that Pao’s resignation did seem imminent, especially given the events of the past week. For me, it’s about, “Let’s get a clean platform where everybody can have a conversation and actually have a real conversation and not just have as many people shout at each other as possible.” It’s been a long time since you could really go to Reddit and see that conversations were authentic. (Reddit has not given a reason for Taylor’s dismissal. Ellen Pao sounds tired. r/EllenPao: Ellen Pao is the most beautiful woman in the planet. That’s my big reason why I’m not out there pitching it. Because we couldn’t show that it was coordinated on our own site, we had a hard time dealing with it when it was clear it was happening on Twitter and other platforms—4chan and 8chan especially. Ellen Pao is a Chinese American woman from New Jersey. “We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes . We noticed you have an ad blocker on. "We are concerned with what a move like this means for for-profit companies that depend on the free labor of volunteers—and whether they truly understand what makes an online community vibrant.". MJ: Was there a period of time when you did trust the information on Reddit more? And on Facebook, you’re not just sharing your data, you’re sharing all your friends’ information, it turns out. Mother Jones talked to the former Reddit CEO about how she thinks her previous industry can take the harassment, abuse, and hate speech it’s enabled more seriously. Mother Jones illustration; Courtesy Ellen Pao. But once you see how the sausage is made, it makes you a vegetarian. And now there’s all these other platforms that came out when we banned a bunch of subreddits. "People really love it, and I would like it to move towards more people loving it. EP: It’s hard. EP: It’s been happening for ages and across platforms. Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation. The good has been off-the-wall inspiring, and the ugly made me doubt humanity. How do we actually get them to take action and how we do hold them accountable other than reporters, after the fact, calling attention to it? Pao now serves as the CEO of Project Include, a nonprofit that advocates diversity in the technology industry. Truth #2: Team Reality is bigger than it seems. The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our lives—from culture to business, science to design. Reddit interim CEO Ellen Pao resigned today after facing an all-out revolt on the site in the wake of the firing of a popular employee. MJ: You’ve talked about how you think these issues are partially being driven by the lack of representation of marginalized people—women, people of color. They’re just wrong. It’s not just speech. I'm delighted to announce that Steve Huffman, founder and the original reddit CEO, is returning as CEO. There have been signs that Reddit, which boasts an impressive 164 million monthly active users, has been trying to grow up for a while. Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. More people are experiencing it, unfortunately, and you see it on multiple threads. She says she’s tired; tired of her old colleagues’ decisions on hate speech, tired of similar decisions from other social media giants, and tired of being harassed online. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and
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