Reddit CEO issues apology: ‘We screwed up’

“We have apologized and made promises to you, the moderators and the community, over many years, but time and again, we haven’t delivered on them”, Ellen Pao said, in the note. However, she was berated for allegedly taking four days to fully respond and going to the media, rather than users, first (something Pao denied).

Last week, Pao made a decision to relieve a top executive from the company which caused users and moderators of the site to protest her decision.

Reddit, which received a $50 million funding round previous year, is attempting to make money out of its dedicated community of more than 150 million users, but has struggled to marry the site’s free speech culture with a pledge to crack down on offensive content.

Pao said: “We screwed up”. A petition was put forth for her to resign that resulted in 200,000 signatures come Tuesday morning.

Community supervisor Kristine Fasnacht would step into that position in addition to the brand new place of Moderator Advocate, to function a liaison between volunteer dialogue part moderators and Reddit staff, Reddit spokeswoman Heather Wilson stated.

She has also stated that “Today, we acknowledge this long history of mistakes. When you’ve had feedback or requests, we haven’t always been responsive”.

According to Pao, she plans on ramping up further communication by staying in touch with the Reddit community from this moment forward.

Reddit Chief Executive Ellen Pao on Monday issued an apology to customers of the favored social information platform over the best way the corporate dealt with the dismissal of a popular employee final week, a transfer that drew widespread outrage from customers.

The ball that set forth the shutting down of over 100 Reddit topics from gaming, movies, science, etc., was due to the letting go of Victoria Taylor, director of talent and communications.

On Thursday Taylor tweeted: “Thank you to everybody for his or her good needs and help”.

Pao has been under pressure since the company sacked Victoria Taylor, a popular employee who oversaw the site’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) question-and-answer sessions that have allowed Reddit users to communicate directly with, among others, Barack Obama, Bill Murray, Tim Berners Lee, Julian Assange, Sir David Attenborough and Bill Gates.

Subreddits, which range from subjects such as United Kingdom politics and “Aww” – cute animal pictures – to freaky subjects such as “Joe Biden and a sandwich”, are the building blocks of the site, focusing discussions round a certain subject.