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Comment by nness | Hacker News Reader

Go through the comments left on the petition, and you'll see someone posting under Pao's name with the message "I'm a cunt."

I don't think Reddit's management is the undoing of Reddit, its the immaturity of the community and the loudness of its most extreme elements. It's disheartening that so many people are getting behind such racist and shortsighted comments.

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Every community has a few trolls and some immature members, but this doesn't characterize the community as a whole [necessarily]. I think your comment is a big generalization.

120,000 people have signed that petition. I'd wager the same number posted comments, up-voted or posted similar threads about the topic on Reddit, Twitter or HN over the last few days. That's not to ignore those actually trying to have a proper discussion about the matter.

If you look at the press that this has generated I would say that, even if they are a minority of Reddit's active users, they have been successful in strengthening an immature image for Reddit as a whole.

I signed the petition. I don't care about FatPeopleHate being banned. I don't care about censorship & I don't care about trolling. Although I did troll a few FPH users after the fattening event.

Sacking your most prominent staff member that is essentially the only one that happily & directly helps moderators.. with nary an explanation? Even if this push is actually coming from senior management beneath her, she's obviously oblivious to how her company is being run. I doubt that, Ellen Pao is basically pushing to make Reddit in her own image, you can bet she believes she's going to be more than "interim" CEO.

Reddit deserves a better CEO. Or it deserves to fade into obscurity.

Many of those who signed aren't trolls. It's clear that current Reddit management is doing 180 turn on the policy/principles the site was built on and which attracted a lot of people in the first place. From "safe space" nonsense through being clueless about Reddit itself to failing at communicating with very people who build the value of your site. She is a terrible person for the position. In every unhappy crowd you will have uncivilized part making fun of her appearence or what not but it's more than that minority who feel deceived by recent Reddit policy changes.

It's very unfair from you suggesting that anyone calling for her resignation is a troll.

Racism? Everyone loved Yishan, who is Asian as well.

People feel threatened Pao is determined to bend Reddit's culture in ways Yishan was committed to leaving open. It kind of angers me as well, out of principle, since this narrative appears to have some truth.

/r/yishansucks

Any arguments that it's racist? I mean one of the problems with silencing/censorship people talk about is that racist card is played too often when any criticism is directed towards someone who isn't white.

The "Chairman Pao" comments, and all the imagery comparing her to the current Chinese government. Generalising and making comparisons based on a person's race is racism. Particularly so, since she was born in America.

The criticism didn't start because of race. Yes, the most offensive images refer to her being Asian and a woman but that would happen with anybody (if CEO was white Russian male you would see Putin/Stalin buddy memes). Even now you see many with Nazi Germany, Hitler etc. which has nothing to do with her race.

It's not racist because she is not treated differently because of race and criticism towards her didn't start because of her race.

I am not defending the hateful posts and I think they weaken the cause as it's too easy to dismiss the whole thing as "racist" or "bunch of teenagers" but it's important distinction. Comments as yours are a problem because you deride the main issue claiming racism which has nothing to do with the situation.

I think it's a comparision to the North Korean government. Not because they're both Asian, but because they are both bad.

No it is comparing her to Chairman Mao, father of the communist party in China, which is notorious for censorship. Pao herself said it is not her goal to make the site be a free speech platform. So the comparison is quite apt, since her actions are similar and even her name is similar.

You're right, it's not racist, and to be clear let's just define racism,

"a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race"

Nobody is saying that a white person would make a better CEO at reddit, nor are they saying all Asians are unsuited for it. Just that she's not the right person for it.

What's shocking to me is that she has a JD and an MBA from Harvard and does not realize the value in the American definition of free speech. Her parents migrated from China, perhaps to get away from Mao's authoritarian rule, and here she is enacting it again, albeit on a much smaller scale. It seems like she's trying to implement the European definition of free speech, which limits hate speech. But having seen how that's worked out for Europe (e.g. the Charlie Hebdo attacks), and given the way Americans are raised to tolerate others with differing opinions, I can't imagine the majority of Americans would agree with her proposed values which limit insulting speech. What is and is not insulting is too subjective to be defined by law or website policy, nor is it necessary to make laws or policies to protect people's feelings. Life is f*ing difficult Pao. Grow up

Cunt is more sexist than it is racist.

But yeah, some people write hateful, stupid things on the internet. It doesn't mean we can just dismiss every page with comments enabled.

I don't go to Reddit that much (practically never unless there's AmA with somebody I really interested of hearing from, which happens about once per 2-3 months), but isn't "the immaturity of the community and the loudness of its most extreme elements" kind of what the thing is for (not solely, but partially) and kind of how it got that big?

Of course, I'm in no way defending the idiots who post vile comments, but I think beyond these idiots there's a legit disagreement about limits of what is allowed, and the broadness of those limits was one of the major attractors to Reddit, or so I heard. Was is a wrong impression?

Also, why "racist"? I don't see anything racist in the petition.

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