Problem is Pao cracked down on the toxic hate shit that was making Reddit risky to invest in. It was controversial but ultimately a net positive for the community. Huffman is essentially selling seed corn by betraying developers and power users for short term gain (unfettered bot traffic, juicing native app usage, selling out to AI companies). A net loss for community morale and cohesion.
Ellen Pao was also the face of Victoria’s firing (who was actually fired by Alexis Ohanian). Other events outside of Reddit (her failed gender discrimination lawsuit and her husband’s own legal issues) also provided fuel for the then-nascent alt-right movement to position her as a feminist, POC bogeyman.
It is also hilarious reading the things she was vilified for back then. How quickly the “free speech absolutists” revealed their true colors when they tried to make their own platforms like Voat. I remember reading shortly afterwards how the sites became “taken over” by the alt-right as the MAGA crowd got more vocal, but the truth was they were there from the beginning.
Problem is Pao cracked down on the toxic hate shit that was making Reddit risky to invest in. It was controversial but ultimately a net positive for the community. Huffman is essentially selling seed corn by betraying developers and power users for short term gain (unfettered bot traffic, juicing native app usage, selling out to AI companies). A net loss for community morale and cohesion.
Ellen Pao was also the face of Victoria’s firing (who was actually fired by Alexis Ohanian). Other events outside of Reddit (her failed gender discrimination lawsuit and her husband’s own legal issues) also provided fuel for the then-nascent alt-right movement to position her as a feminist, POC bogeyman.
It is also hilarious reading the things she was vilified for back then. How quickly the “free speech absolutists” revealed their true colors when they tried to make their own platforms like Voat. I remember reading shortly afterwards how the sites became “taken over” by the alt-right as the MAGA crowd got more vocal, but the truth was they were there from the beginning.
I was the only leftist on voat. The website was okay. The people constantly reminded me why the working class must never disarm.
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