Reddit: Site of Revolt

Reddit is a unique place on the internet. A website with complete user-generated content—which can range from discussions on philosophy to a question and answer session with Barack Obama to even a catalogue and discussion on cute cat photographs—it taps every debate or discussion in the world, mainstream or niche. With 164 million active users per month, it has become the water-cooler of the internet.

Its structure itself is a uniquely contemporary creation. For a company that is currently valued at around $500 million, Reddit is said to have around only 60 employees. Redditors, as its users are called, with their submissions and comments provide free content and labour. And the ‘mods’, or volunteers, moderate the discussions. Usually, almost anything and everything goes. Discussions are unfettered and candid. Reddit has in its last ten years of existence become a giant online bulletin board, and, as it calls itself, ‘the front page of the Internet’.

But in the past week, one after the other, popular forums began to go dark. A rebellion was afoot and Reddit wasn’t able to do anything about it. Its very nature and model for which it once accrued praise was now working against it. The mods, who play the crucial role of moderating discussions and reining in trolls, were revolting against the website. The very policemen of the website had turned their ire against its administrators. Anger was triggered by the dismissal of a Reddit employee, Victoria Taylor, who oversaw some of the most popular sections—the reason for her termination wasn’t explained—and aggravated by the company’s treatment of its volunteers, the mods shut down around 300 of the website’s top discussion boards. The protest plans were chalked out right on Reddit itself. When Ellen Pao, the website’s interim CEO—who is at the brunt of an online petition with 200,000 signatures seeking her resignation— tried to intervene, her comments did little to appease the mods.

Taylor ran the popular Q&A forum known as Ask Me Anything (AMA) and was the main contact person for many of the website’s mods. Since there had been no plans in place to manage upcoming events, her dismissal was tough for the mods, especially those connected with the AMA sections. Most of the closed discussion boards were back online in a few days, but the controversy refused to die down.

What the incident has done is shine a harsh light on Reddit, its dependency on free labour and its increasingly difficult relationship with volunteers. Even if the shut discussion boards had been reopened immediately, this powerful website would have not had anyone to moderate them.

Pao has now apologised for the incident. ‘We screwed up,’ she wrote. ‘Not just on 2 July, but also over the past several years. We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes.’ According to Pao, Reddit is now going to actively reach out to its volunteers and address what the firm calls a history of mistakes and poor communication. Its plans include prioritising the development of new tools for moderators, something that they have been demanding for years.

Tensions, however, remain high. The mods of AskReddit have also threatened to shut down their section, the most popular part of the website, if the company is unable to provide them with two sets of better tools. Their ultimatum is September and December.

There are cracks in the model of the website. And these are there for everyone to see. If they are not fixed, it could yet destroy ‘the front page of the internet’ as we know it.

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