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"Fake News": The Emergence of a Post-Fact World
#58
Warren,

Agreed.  Here is the original article all in one (I think I got it right, it took a little bit of doing to paste it all together):

Quote:Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief
By MIKE ISAAC



Ellen Pao, the interim chief executive of Reddit, resigned from the online message board on Friday after a week of ceaseless criticism from scores of angry users over the handling of an employee departure.

Ms. Pao will be replaced by Steve Huffman, who, along with Alexis Ohanian, started Reddit from a two-bedroom apartment in a suburb of Boston a decade ago. Ms. Pao said she would remain as an adviser to Reddit’s board for the remainder of the year.

Her exit, which the company described as a mutual agreement between her and Reddit’s board, follows a week of unrest in the Reddit community, which is made up of more than 160 million regular users who use the site to talk about anything from current events to viral cat photos.

Ms. Pao characterized her departure as a result of a disagreement with Reddit’s board on the future of the company.

“It became clear that the board and I had a different view on the ability of Reddit to grow this year,” Ms. Pao said in an interview. “Because of that, it made sense to bring someone in that shared the same view.”

Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board, said he personally appreciated Ms. Pao’s efforts during her two years working at the start-up. “Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said.

Reddit, now based in San Francisco, is composed of topic-based forums, known as subreddits, where discussions take place on subjects like news and technology. The company has 70 to 80 employees and relies largely upon its thousands of dedicated power users to govern the site.

That tight-knit community erupted into upheaval when the news broke that Victoria Taylor, a prominent and well-liked Reddit employee, had been abruptly dismissed from the company this month with no public explanation. Many Reddit users blamed Ms. Pao directly in the hours after Ms. Taylor’s firing, flooding Reddit’s forums with vitriolic messages — often racist and misogynistic — calling for Ms. Pao’s ouster.

Reddit users circulated an online petition calling for her removal that garnered more than 200,000 signatures.

Ms. Pao apologized to the site’s members for the episode earlier this week. Reddit’s management made errors, “not just on July 2, but also over the past several years,” Ms. Pao said in a post on one of the site’s forums on Monday. “The mods” — moderators — “and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of Reddit.”

Ms. Pao has long been a figure of controversy in Silicon Valley. In March, she lost a gender discrimination lawsuit against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where she had previously worked. The trial, which involved big-name Silicon Valley investors such as John Doerr, mesmerized Silicon Valley with its salacious details while also amplifying concerns about a lack of diversity in the technology industry.

And here is what it became, same link.

Quote:Comparing: It’s Silicon Valley 2, Ellen Pao 0: Fighter of Sexism Is Out at Reddit
By MIKE ISAAC and DAVID STREITFELD

Ellen Pao became a hero to many when she took on the entrenched sexist culture of Silicon Valley. But sentiment is a fickle thing, and late Friday the entrepreneur fell victim to a shrill crowd demanding her ouster as chief executive of the popular social media site Reddit.

Ms. Pao’s abrupt downfall in the face of a torrent of sexist and racist attacks, many of them on Reddit itself, is likely to renew charges that bullying, harrassment and ugly behavior are out of control on the web — and that Silicon Valley’s well-publicized lack of interest in hiring anyone who is not male and white is contributing to the problem.

The debates over diversity in technology and invective on the Internet have been simmering for a long time, but they boiled over in the last year. One reason was Ms. Pao’s lawsuit against her former employer, the venerable venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Her gender discrimination case, years in the making, failed to sway a jury, but did reveal a community that casually tolerated an atmosphere where male aggression was prized and women always seemed to be relegated to secondary roles.

The dispute at Reddit, which arose from the dismissal of a well-liked employee earlier this month, drew much of its intensity from Ms. Pao’s lawsuit — and her gender.

“The attacks were worse on Ellen because she is a woman,” said Sam Altman, a member of the
 Reddit board.  “And that’s just a shame against humanity.”

More than 213,000 people signed a petition demanding Ms. Pao’s resignation. After her departure was announced, Reddit users celebrated in the usual over-the-top fashion. “Rejoice internet brethren,” wrote one. “The great evil has been slain.”

Ms. Pao wrote in a Reddit post on Friday that in her eight months as chief executive, “I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly.” She added that, “the good has been off-the-wall inspiring, and the ugly made me doubt humanity.”

“It was definitely a hard week,” Ms. Pao said in an interview, characterizing her exit as a mutual agreement with the board after having differing views of the future of the company. She began working at Reddit two years ago. Reddit is usually one of the highest trafficked sites on the Internet, with more than 160 million regular monthly visitors.

Mitch Kapor, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that Reddit users were predominantly male and 18 to 29 years in age.

“In my view, her job was made more difficult because as a woman, she was particularly subject to the abuse stemming from the pockets of toxic misogyny in the Reddit ecosystem,” said Mr. Kapor, now a partner at Kapor Capital.

Ms. Pao’s departure from Reddit was prompted after the tight-knit community of the online message board
 erupted into upheaval when news broke that Victoria Taylor, a prominent and well-liked Reddit employee, had been abruptly dismissed from the company this month with no public explanation.  In protest, Reddit users shut down hundreds of sections of the online message board.

Ms. Pao apologized to the site’s members for the episode earlier this week. Reddit’s management made errors, “not just on July 2, but also over the past several years,” she said in a post on one of the site’s forums on Monday. “The mods” — moderators — “and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of Reddit.”

The ouster was another setback for Ms. Pao, who rejected a seven-figure settlement offer from Kleiner last fall to end her claims that she had been discriminated against at the venture firm because she was a woman.

Kleiner maintained that Ms. Pao, who joined the firm in 2005 as chief of staff to its best-known partner, John Doerr, was simply not very good as an investor. The case drew attention around the world, in part for its salacious details

In the wake of the trial, Kleiner said Ms. Pao owed it nearly $1 million in court fees but offered to waive the bill if there was no appeal. Ms. Pao countered that the sum was excessive. Judge Harold Kahn agreed and reduced Kleiner’s costs to $276,000. He noted in his ruling that “Ms. Pao has significant economic resources.”

Ms. Pao declined in interviews to detail what her next move was, but an appeal in the Kleiner case is quietly moving forward. The court reporter has been ordered to prepare transcripts, which is the next stage of the process. Ms. Pao does not need to give her basis for appeal for many months.

If she eventually succeeds in convincing a three-judge panel that the trial was unfair, Kleiner — and Silicon Valley — would be on trial again. Ms. Pao’s lawyers did not return calls for comment on Friday. A lawyer for Kleiner declined comment.

At Reddit, Ms. Pao will be replaced by Steve Huffman, the chief technology officer at Hipmunk, a travel search site. Mr. Huffman will have his hands full. Adam Goldstein, chief executive of Hipmunk, said that the engineer will continue to oversee product and engineering at the site on a part-time basis. Mr. Huffman will also remain on Hipmunk’s board.

Mr. Huffman and Alexis Ohanian started Reddit in a two-bedroom apartment in a suburb of Boston a decade ago. Users go to the site to talk about everything from current events to viral cat photos. The company, based in San Francisco, has 70 to 80 employees and relies largely upon its thousands of dedicated power users to govern the site.

Reddit is a private company, a majority of which is owned by Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast. Last October, Reddit raised $50 million in venture capital from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Mr. Altman and the rapper Snoop Dogg.

Ms. Pao said she would remain as an adviser to Reddit’s board for the remainder of the year. As for her immediate future, she said, “I plan to get a lot of sleep.”

Vindu Goel contributed reporting from San Francisco
.


Does that really read like "fact-checking" to you?  Rolleyes
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RE: "Fake News": The Emergence of a Post-Fact World - by SomeGuy - 01-17-2017, 01:11 PM

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