I’m sharing this old article because it’s useful to contrast the situation back then (protests against hate speech) and now (protests due to the APIcalypse).
Here are a few highlights:
- Back then, the admins were already eager to shift their discourse back and forth, depending on the convenience. Reddit was always about free speech, then it never was.
- Former CEO Yishan Wong’s “[shutting down subreddits] won’t become a regular occurrence”
- If you try to follow the link sourcing the quote above, you’ll notice that most Reddit blog official communications towards users are gone. Instead you’ll find a blog clearly geared towards investors, vulture capital, and corporate.
Any other old piece of news that you guys feel like sharing, that can be contextualised to show Reddit going downhill?
The fact that they sold Reddit to Condé Nast is on its own a sign that they were already corporation-minded. Otherwise they’d simply say “nah, we thank you for the offer but we see Reddit as a public service, not as a business”. That’s likely what Swartz would’ve done.
Also the fact that kn0thing remained in Reddit a long time after it was bought, and that Greedy Pigboy is still there as its CEO.