(Breitbart) Confirming the worst fears of users, Reddit CEO Ellen Pao has told NPR that she does not want the site to be a “completely free-speech platform”. Her comments followed last week’s introduction of new ‘anti-harassment’ policies on the link-sharing site that were widely criticised for their vagueness. They will add to concerns that Reddit is becoming unsafe for unpopular opinions, and is likely to spur further migrations of users to Voat.co, Reddit’s main competitor.
Reddit’s success was built on its famously minimal set of rules, which only prohibit the posting of child pornography, spam, and personal information. This framework allowed the site to undergo a period of rapid expansion, as users created a wide variety of user-created communities (known as ‘subreddits’), safe in the knowledge that they would not face arbitrary censure. Pao’s comments indicate the company is moving away from its founding principles, and conflict with statements made by her predecessor, who last year reaffirmed Reddit’s commitment to “uphold the ideal of free speech as much as possible”.