Subreddits Were Shut Down Left and Right
Reddit has never been a stranger to controversy, whether they did something for the right reasons or not. But a new, puzzling decision by the admins has left the users and Reddit moderators confused, angry, and desperate to send a message. And so they did. After Reddit fired Victoria Taylor, their director of communications, without a clear reason and without any notice to the moderator teams, the IAmA subreddit that she was vital to went private in an attempt to regroup and discuss where to go from there. Other Reddit moderators also made their subreddits private in solidarity, angry that one of Reddit’s most beloved employees and users was let go.
Who Is Victoria?
Victoria Taylor label was Reddit’s Director of Communications. But Reddit users knew her as far more. Going under the username chooter, she essentially became the proxy when celebrities were visiting IAmA, the subreddit where users were allowed to ask questions to people of note. Before Victoria, IAmA had a tendency to be about slightly strange people that Reddit users were fascinated by. But with Victoria working to be a liaison between celebrities and the Reddit moderators, celebrities like Channing Tatum, Jeff Goldblum, Chris Pratt, and even President Barack Obama took questions from Reddit users. Taylor was recently let go without a discernible reason given. The problem there is that Victoria wasn’t just one of the few ways Reddit moderators were able to stay in touch with celebrities that were scheduled to have AMAs – she was the only person. With no notice given and a number of other AMAs on the horizon, Reddit moderators for IAmA angrily turned the subreddit private to gather information and figure out how to proceed.
Solidarity
Victoria’s firing seemed to be the final straw for a large number of Reddit moderators. Other popular and frequently read subreddits including r/pics, r/askreddit, r/hiphopheads, and most regrettably r/circlejerk were also set to private, along with hundreds of other subreddits. However, this is not entirely due to the firing of Victoria; Reddit moderators have gone on record as being aggravated with slow responses to problems if they even get a response, among other things. This protest is not just one for Victoria, but for Reddit moderators to gain a sense of communication with Reddit’s administrators.
