Another ban wave just happened.

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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (24 children)

I don't know much about Ohanian or the new exec. Do you have reason to think it might be the new exec?

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (23 children)

Well the timing is just very coincidental. They haven't done mass bans like this in quite some time, and now they've done 2 rounds of it in under a week.

I can easily imagine the new diversity-hire ceo wanting to "shake things up" and show how they're going to set a new tone for reddit, and cracking down. To me, it seems like the most likely scenario of why they're doing this now

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (22 children)

That's an interesting thought. When did the new hire come on board?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (21 children)

June 10th, exactly a month ago: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/10/21285835/reddit-board-replacement-alexis-ohanian-michael-seibel-y-combinator

That fits the timeline about right. Just enough time to get his office set up and learn how things work, and then start making "informed" orders about what subs to remove to clean up saidit.

Meanwhile Ohanian can just walk away from the train wreck and take none of the blame... haha

Alternative theory: Maybe Huffman wanted to do these changes, and will pin it all on the new black guy, just like they did with Ellen Pao. And then he'll quit in a year or so, just like Pao, yet Huffman will stay. I could see that happening too.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

this sounds like the sort of thing ip2 would be good at figuring out

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (19 children)

I feel this theory deserves more visibility.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (18 children)

If the Huffman scapegoat theory is also correct, then we should see Mr. Michael Seibel's name and image around reddit increasingly often, as we did with Pao while she was making huge changes to the site. That's a testable hypothesis we can look out for that would indicate he's being set up to take the blame. I imagine Seibel will be put front and center if the heat gets too hot on Huffman, just like with Pao. Just a guess though.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

Maybe we should warn this Seibel guy. Maybe he'd join the side of free speech if he realized what happened with Pao, and saw he was being set up for something similar. Saw we weren't the bad guys here.

as we did with Pao while she was making huge changes to the site

What did Pao change about the site?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

He probably knows what the deal is. Even if he didn't know I doubt we could convince him anyway, he's just been put in charge of a $100m company, and we're just two randos. But you can try if you want. I doubt you can even find direct contact info though. I guess you could PM him on reddit, not sure his reddit username though. He might also have PMs disabled though, as a lot of reddit admins do because if they don't they get like 100 messages an hour.

Pao basically did ad-friendly revisions of the site, that blended in ads with content. And also hid the individual up and downvote counts, instead only showing the total. And a lot of other sell-out or censorship-related changes. Here's an article: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-steps-down-huffman-replacement/

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

He probably knows what the deal is.

If he knew he was gonna be a "fall guy" soon enough, why did he take the position? Did Pao know when she took the position?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

If he knew he was gonna be a "fall guy" soon enough, why did he take the position?

$1,000,000 / year income and instant international fame in the business and tech world?

I don't think Pao knew. I'm not sure if this guy knows either, but he had to have read about Pao... so I'd assume if he's reasonably intelligent (which he probably is if Huffman selected him) then he's connected the dots and sees this is a replay of that.

Or maybe all the power is going to his head and he's just on a huge power trip right now and having fun with it and doesn't see what could be coming down the road. That could be true too. I would imagine he has some inklings along these lines though, if I were him I would've spent at least a few hours reading about Pao by now.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

As a counter-argument to my own theory, Seibel's not the CEO like Pao was, he's just a high-ranking board member. I think he's basically 2nd in command after Huffman, unlike Pao who was 1st in command.

And also Seibel is CEO of Y Combinator, so unlike Pao he has a lot of forum experience.

However ycombinator forums (like news.ycombinator.com) run a pretty tight ship... so I expect a lot more bans to continue as they tighten the belt in the name of increasing quality.