Now there’s a petition to reinstate Ellen Pao as Reddit CEO

Because popcorn tastes real good.

There is a new petition on Change.org calling for former interim Reddit CEO Ellen Pao to be reinstated as chief executive. So far it has 312 supporters.

The petition follows a series of dramatic events at Reddit that were supposed to have ended with Pao’s stepping down. Typical for Reddit, the roller coaster is still going.

It all started two weeks ago when Reddit decided to make some changes to its Ask Me Anything forum and subsequently let go of talent and communication manager Victoria Taylor. Community members protested that Taylor was a much-needed asset in facilitating AMA’s and handling celebrities along with their agents. As a result of Taylor’s dismissal, redditors responded violently, calling for Pao to step down. In turn, Pao issued an apology for the way Taylor’s departure was handled; days later, she tendered her resignation.

Since then there have been a series of posts on Reddit from incoming chief executive Steve Huffman, Reddit board member Sam Altman, and Reddit cofounder Alexi Ohanian reassuring redditors that changes going forward will be made with the community in mind. Huffman even offered to do an AMA session on Thursday July 16, for redditors with any questions about the state of Reddit.

Meanwhile former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong seems to be taking the piss out of everyone insisting that Pao was Reddit’s biggest opportunity for self-regulation.

“Ellen was more or less inclined to continue upholding my free-speech policies. /r/fatpeoplehate was banned for inciting off-site harassment, not discussing fat-shaming. What all the white-power racist-sexist neckbeards don’t understand is that with her at the head of the company, the company would be immune to accusations of promoting sexism and racism: she is literally Silicon Valley’s #1 Feminist Hero, so any “SJWs” would have a hard time attacking the company for intentionally creating a bastion (heh) of sexist/racist content. She probably would have tolerated your existence so long as you didn’t cause any problems – I know that her long-term strategies were to find ways to surface and publicize reddit’s good parts – allowing the bad parts to exist but keeping them out of the spotlight. It would have been very principled – the CEO of reddit, who once sued her previous employer for sexual discrimination, upholds free speech and tolerates the ugly side of humanity because it is so important to maintaining a platform for open discourse. It would have been unassailable.

Well, now she’s gone (you did it reddit!), and /u/spez has the moral authority as a co-founder to move ahead with the purge. We tried to let you govern yourselves and you failed, so now The Man is going to set some Rules. Admittedly, I can’t say I’m terribly upset.”

Wong’s post seems to have riled some redditors up, so much that they created a petition to bring Pao back.

So what’s next? Will there be a last-second switch and New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo will appear at Reddit’s helm? Or will Snoop Dogg finally decide he wants a shot at the big job? Stay tuned, at least for the popcorn.