Reddit chief Ellen Pao quits after receiving ‘sickening’ abuse from users

Ellen Pao has bowed to pressure to quit as Reddit chief executive after a revolt from the website’s users over her handling of a popular employee’s dismissal. She is being replaced by Reddit co-founder and former chief executive, Steve Huffman, the company said. Mr Huffman said it was “sickening” to read some of the abuse Ms Pao had received from Reddit users. The move comes after 200,000 people signed an online petition calling for Ms Pao to go. Unpaid moderators of some of the link-sharing site’s most-read sections temporarily hid them from public view in protest at Reddit’s recent dismissal of Victoria Taylor.

In my eight months as reddit’s CEO, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly on reddit. The good has been off-the-wall inspiring, and the ugly made me doubt humanity.

Out-going Reddit boss Ellen Pao

Ms Taylor, talent director at the San Francisco-based company, was in charge of the “ask me anything” (AMA) question and answer sessions which have seen the likes of Barack Obama and Bill Gates grilled by Reddit users. Ms Pao apologised last Monday for the company’s handling of Ms Taylor’s firing, saying: “We screwed up. The buck stops with me." Ms Pao was recently left with a £543,000 legal bill after losing a discrimination case against her former employer. Reddit has about 163 million monthly unique users.

I just want to remind everyone that I am just another human; I have a family, and I have feelings.

Ellen Pao

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