Earlier in June we saw Reddit up-in-arms over new interim CEO Ellen Pao, who quickly became target to severe backlash from the community after establishing that Reddit would no longer be a “completely free-speech platform.” As such, many users transitioned their way over to Voat, a Swiss forum-like website similar to Reddit.
According to MediaMiser’s analytics technology, June saw over 1000 online articles published with regards to Pao and Reddit.
Today Reddit is revolting. Again.
Victoria Taylor, the employee who ensured the long-running success of Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) thread, has been abruptly fired. And sub-reddit moderators are not happy. Hundreds of popular communities, once open for discussion, have gone dark.
To date, roughly 100 sub-reddits have been temporarily shutdown.
In the words of Reddit user IamTimCast: “Reddit really needs someone to handle the bad PR due to the backlash of firing the person who handles PR.”
Moderators and users sitewide claim that Victoria Taylor is needed to uphold the integrity of the AMA thread. Various news sources speculate that moderators have closed their subreddits in solidarity to Victoria Taylor, and to protest how they’ve been unfairly treated by admins.
With 7.5 billion pageviews a month, Reddit is one of the Internet’s central hub for news and information. Some would even say that Reddit, itself, IS the Internet. Reddit’s revolt could change the way online news, stories and information is shared in the near future.
How do you think Reddit’s strike will affect social media and online news?
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