Gawker exposes Violentacrez
Gawker outs Brutsch, a 49-year-old computer programmer from Texas, as the the real-life identity of “Violentacrez”, a Reddit moderator, who had set up more than a hundred sub-forums (called sub-reddits) where users could share links and images of underage girls, rape fantasy and upskirt photos. Brutsch shuts down his Violentacrez username after Gawker reporter Adrian Chen tells him he knows his identity. He returns to the site with the new handle “mbrutsch”. In response to the exposé of Violentacres’ identity, a number of Reddit moderators ban Gawker links from their subreddits.
Loses job
As a result of the Gawker story, Brutsch is fired from his job. Brutsch said that he had warned his boss of the article before receiving a call Saturday telling him to not return to the office. Brutsch:
All my remote access has been disabled, my health insurance and FSA were cancelled immediately (so they had to drag someone in over the weekend to do that). At this point, if any of the dozens of death threats I’ve gotten were to make good on their promises, at least my wife would have the insurance.
Brutsch’s supporters on Reddit launch a campaign to donate money to the newly unemployed Brutsch and he released his email address on Reddit so supporters could donate money to his PayPal account.
$400M valuation rumored
0 CommentsTechCrunch hears a rumor that Reddit is planning a funding round that values it around twice 2011 levels.
Aaron Swartz commits suicide age 26
Swartz body is found by his girlfriend at his home in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn at around 9.30am. He was 26. Swartz’ attorney confirms in an email to The Tech blog.
The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true
He left no suicide note. Swartz’s mother writes on Hacker News:
Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful. Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable.
Congresswoman posts revamped ‘Aaron’s Law’ on Reddit
Rep. Lofgren (D-Calif.) posts a revised and expanded “Aaron’s Law” — her proposal to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in honor of Aaron Swartz to Reddit. The new draft addresses some of the concerns that were raised when the first proposal was made public. The bill de-criminalizes terms of service violations and defines what “access without authorization” actually means, the main concern of a number of legal experts such as Lawrence Lessig or the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Marcia Hoffmann, who were concerned about the clarity Lofgren’s original proposal. The new bill also ensures that changing one’s IP or MAC address is not a violation of either the CFAA or the Wire Fraud act.
Bill Gates AMA
Bill Gates does an AMA on Reddit, where he discusses vaccines, climate change, And Steve Jobs.
Original thread here. A summary of Gates’ answers can be found here.
Bans hacked photos subreddit
0 CommentsReddit administrators ban the page where many hacked photos of naked celebrities landed when they flooded the internet almost a week earlier. Reddit managers were continuously trying to keep the stolen pictures off of that page, but users kept re-posting them.
You choose what to post. You choose what to read. You choose what kind of subreddit to create and what kind of rules you will enforce. But it became obvious that we were either going to have to watch these subreddits constantly, or shut them down. We chose the latter.
Giving back Reddit shares
Altman announces in an AMA that he and other investors in the latest round are giving part of their shares to users of the site:
We’re working on a way to give 10% of our shares from this round to the reddit community. I hope we can increase community ownership over time–I’ve always thought communities like reddit should mostly own themselves, and that it’s time for some innovation around corporate structure here. I’m giving the company a voting proxy on my shares.
Hires Morrissey
Reddit hires Morrissey after acquiring his Alien Blue app. Reddit:
We are pleased to announce that the most popular iOS client for Reddit, Alien Blue, is now an official Reddit app. We’re also happy to say that its lead developer, Jase Morrissey, has joined us as our first Aussie. We have been working closely with Jase for the past several years, and are thrilled to officially welcome him to our team.
Reddit $50m Series B funding
Altman leads Reddit’s $50 million Series B round with Andreesen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, as well as individual investors including Leto, Dogg, Kushner, Livingston, Kevin and Julia Hartz, Mariam Naficy, and Reddit CEO Yishan Wong. Valuation is $500 million. Altman:
I’m willing to be very patient. I don’t have any particular timeframe in mind. I believe that the community is very valuable and that the value will continue to increase. Up to the company if they want to share cashflow details, but they run the company efficiently.
The Button
Reddit adds a countdown button as an April Fool’s joke.
The timer will count down from 60 seconds. If the button is pressed the timer will reset to 60 seconds and continue counting down. Only users logged into accounts created before 2015-04-01 can press the button. You may only press the button once. We can’t tell you what to do from here on out. The choice is yours.
The timer will count down from 60 seconds, but every time someone presses the button before it hits zero, it resets back to 60 and starts the countdown all over again. When the button is pressed, users get a badge, known as “flair,” that they can add to their profile. The flair’s color depends on how long the person waits to press the button. Those who have not pressed the button have gray flair. Those who press from 60-52 seconds get purple flair, and so on, down to red flair for those who wait longest. As of April 16, 751,354 people have pressed the button.
Removes wage negotiations
In an attempt to reduce the possibility of a wage gap existing within Reddit, Interim CEO Pao removes the ability of employees to negotiate for their wages at reddit. Instead employees are offered a salary on a take it or leave it basis. This is due to findings that men are better at negotiating their salaries and as such usually end up with a slightly better salary than their female counterparts. Pao urges other companies to do the same, claiming that it is an important step in gender equality.
When somebody comes in we figure out what role they’re applying for, what band they’re in and we give them what we think is a fair salary in that band. It takes a lot of tension out of the process, we’ve had people apply to Reddit just because of that policy.
Button reaches 1million presses
The Button has had one million different people press it in the two month and two days since its origin, which represents a little over one tenth of the total population of all Reddit accounts.
Deletes subreddits
Pao enrages the users of Reddit by deleting /r/fatpeoplehate, a major subreddit with over one hundred and fifty thousand users, as well as four smaller subreddits. Pao says the act is to stop harassment:
We want as little involvement as possible in managing these interactions but will be involved when needed to protect privacy and free expression, and to prevent harassment…It is not easy to balance these values, especially as the Internet evolves. We are learning and hopefully improving as we move forward. We want to be open about our involvement: We will ban subreddits that allow their communities to use the subreddit as a platform to harass individuals when moderators don’t take action. We’re banning behavior, not ideas.
Users accuse Pao for censorship, even those that don’t like the subreddit.
10th birthday
The site celebrates its 10th birthday in a blog post that contains statistics about the site’s growth over the years.
Wow. Here we are, ten years later.
- 190,227,552 posts
- 1,715,454,785 comments
- 16,063,942,290 upvotes
- 36,136,190 user accounts
Together we’ve donated over $1.8 million to Extra Life, Haiti, teachers, and Nepal. We donated another $827,659.49—10% of our 2014 ad revenue—to the top 10 charities of your choice. You’ve also donated a huge amount that we can’t begin to track through individual subreddit campaigns and spontaneous events like this.
You guys really are amazing. Thank you for making the last 10 years of Reddit amazing too. Here’s to the next 10 years.
Will ‘triage’ AMA requests
Ohanian makes an announcement in regards to Taylor’s removal.
We don’t talk about specific employees, but I do want you to know that I’m here to triage AMA requests in the interim. All AMA inquiries go to AMA@reddit.com where we have a team in place…I posted this on [a mod sub] but I’m reposting here:
We get that losing Victoria has a significant impact on the way you manage your community. I’d really like to understand how we can help solve these problems, because I know r/IAMA thrived before her and will thrive after…We’re prepared to help coordinate and schedule AMAs. I’ve got the inbound coming through my inbox right now and many of the people who come on to do AMAs are excited to do them without assistance (most recently, the noteworthy Channing Tatum AMA).
This is met with harsh criticism and has a total comment score of under -2500.
Subreddits go private
In a response to the earlier removal of Taylor, over 2/5s of the default subreddits that comprise the bulk of user page views make themselves private. Several hundred normal subreddits also take themselves down in protest. Some smaller subreddits and Reddit’s competition, Voat, have seen a boost in traffic as a result. A moderator from /r/pics:
Most people are saying that Victoria leaving was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Reddit’s failing at communication with moderators (and users) goes so far back, even to when I wasn’t on this site.
Pao apologizes
Pao makes an announcement as to how she plans on fixing her mistakes on Reddit.
We screwed up. Not just on July 2, but also over the past several years. We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes. 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. When you’ve had feedback or requests, we haven’t always been responsive. The mods and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of reddit.
Today, we acknowledge this long history of mistakes. We are grateful for all you do for reddit, and the buck stops with me …
I know these are just words, and it may be hard for you to believe us. I don’t have all the answers, and it will take time for us to deliver concrete results. I mean it when I say we screwed up, and we want to have a meaningful ongoing discussion. I know we’ve drifted out of touch with the community as we’ve grown and added more people, and we want to connect more. I and the team are committed to talking more often with the community, starting now.
Thank you for listening. Please share feedback here. Our team is ready to respond to comments.
Thanks supporters
In her first statement since she was fired from the site, Taylor thanks her supporters (full text):
I’ve had some time to think about how to respond to the extraordinary kindness and support you’ve shown me. And here it is: I’ll never forget my time at reddit. You allowed me to be a part of some of the greatest conversations of our time, and it was an honor to be your ambassador. I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who have reached out.
Thank you for everything you’ve given me. From your messages to your artwork, I am deeply moved and grateful beyond words, and your encouragement has meant more than you’ll ever know. I’ve been incredibly humbled and honored to serve this community, and I truly believe all voices matter. Your voices matter. You proved that this weekend. And really, this weekend wasn’t about me. It was about you. And if I know one thing about this community, it’s that you’ll continue making your voices heard. And that’s an inspiration.