Another ban wave just happened.

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[–]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.

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

I just think it'd be a clever twist, y'know? If he was brought on to be betrayed as a fall guy, found out, and instead betrayed the plans to do bad stuff with reddit, made it good again, and freed the people he'd been brought on to betray.

Man I wanna write a movie script now. All the "elites do divide and conquer don't listennn" people would love it. People would do infiltration this way, the people in charge think they're bribing people for loyalty but instead the people they bring on do the right thing, stick up for the "bad" people they're supposed to betray, and there's not even any violence.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Haha that would be amazing. That sounds like a movie plot.

[–]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.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Wait Seibel is the CEO of Y Combinator? That's a bigger deal than reddit, isn't it? Lots of people like Y Combinator. If he actually just enforces a policy against "hate" this seems like a good thing but... the "it's ok to be bad to majorities" thing doesn't really seem like it's a good start to all this.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Well, reddit is ranked #18 in the world and ycombinator is ranked #6198 right now: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ycombinator.com

But ycombinator is owned by investor Paul Graham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer)

Paul Graham also invented the Pyramid of Debate that we use as the core of the moderation for saidit (which I think ycombinator forums also uses in some form): https://saidit.net/static/PyramidDebate.jpg

And ycombinator has funded many many tech startups. Including reddit in 2006 as a matter of fact! Aaron Swartz joined the reddit team about the time they got ycombinator funding, and then left a year later when they sold it to conde nast, after building the reddit codebase both reddit and saidit still use to this day.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Yeah I think of Y Combinator more as a tech funding venture capitalist thing or whatever it is. More than the associated message board, though lots of people seem to like that too. That's why it seems like a bigger deal than reddit.

I didn't know Y Combinator helped fund reddit! They should add a security and wellbeing team to Y Combinator in honor of Aaron Swartz, what happened to him shouldn't have happened.

Hey maybe Seibel could make it happen. I should just write his whole todo list for him, huh? Seriously though maybe something good can come out of it. Y Combinator has a good track record afaik. Though I do keep being disappointed when I look up to others too much, everyone's just people.

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

Yeah apparently ycombinator is worth $80 billion and reddit is valued at $3 billion. So just portfolio-wise and financially, ycombinator is about 20x bigger than reddit.

Here's the list of companies they started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Y_Combinator_startups

Includes dropbox, Disqus, airbnb and more.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I feel better about Seibel too knowing his ycombinator background. But I still think they're going to keep pushing the edge of the censorship to increase quality (and thus advertiser valuation, and thus company valuation) but they will probably do it intelligently instead of ham-fistedly like Pao did.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Well his Y Combinator background does speak well of him, but the things that have happened lately at reddit imo really do not. I'm really super not a fan of the "boers aren't a minority what are you talking about" anti-abuse policy they put in. I've been disappointed by people I really looked up to before. I think I should keep evaluating people by their actions like any sane person. I guess if anything I feel a little sadder about YC if this is what their exec is participating in.

They do seem to be responding to user complaints though. They took some of those violent pornography subs off and they reinstated /r/detrans.

I guess we'll see. What would a YC exec be excited about? New tech possibilities for Reddit? Innovation? Growth opportunities? Is he excited about getting other "disadvantaged" people involved inclusively in tech? Why would he take the position if he was already YC CEO?

[–]cloudrabbit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Is it even possible to build a decently-sized startup without selling your soul to venture capitalists?

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

We're trying!