Reddit Fired Popular Employee, Users Fired Back With Memes And Shut The Site Down

Victoria Taylor is the director of communications for Reddit. She was responsible for getting big time celebrities such as Barack Obama, Channing Tatum, Amy Poehler and Julian Assange for some of the most popular AMA’s on the community site. She recently quit or was fired and her dismissal has sparked a revolution on Reddit.

The AMA subreddit is without their leader and went private for some time. The site is back, but instead of intriguing “Ask Me Anything” features, there is now such posts as “I Hate Reddit.” In fact, many high traffic subreddits such as /r/gaming, /r/history, /r/movies, /r/Music, /r/videos, /r/Jokes, /r/TodayILearned and /r/funny went dark in protest of Victoria as well as recent decisions that Reddit has made.

Reddit exploded in anger a month ago after the site’s CEO, Ellen Pao, cracked down on harassment and politically incorrect subreddits. Her statement of “It’s not our site’s goal to be a completely free-speech platform,” infuriated many Reddit users.

Then on Wednesday, Taylor was at the helm during Jesse Jackson’s AMA which went rather shitily. When Jackson was asked, “What are some things that the average African-American can do to help reduce racial tensions in his area?” Jackson replied with nonsensical responses such as, “Well, the source of those tensions often come from denial of an even playing field. You know, we are very good at athletics.”

One Redditor asked, “My question is simple; how is your relationship with the illegitimate child you fathered in 1998 while cheating on your wife? Bonus question: How much money have you extorted from various people and companies over the years of practicing your shakedown scheme? Do you think Al Capone would be jealous of your business model if he were still alive?” To which Jackson retorted:

The doomed interview ended with Taylor being fired or quitting, which sparked the link-sharing site that garners 160 million regular monthly users into chaos.

Pao tried to calm the riot with this post, which was later deleted:

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has attempted tho quell the situation and said this:

There is currently a petition on Change.org demanding that Pao step down as CEO of Reddit and it has over 20,000 signatures.

Then came the memes. Including this photo simply titled, “Reporting Live From Reddit.”

Meanwhile the front page of Reddit is consumed with the entire controversy. WOAH! Che Guevara on a pickle slice! I think I found my next story.