Petition for Pao resignation from Reddit grows to 130K
Petition organizers say they fear Pao's leadership is fostering a "new age of censorship" that will destroy the community-curated news site.
An online petition calling for the resignation of Ellen Pao, Reddit's interim CEO, has attracted more than 130,000 signatures, growing rapidly in the past two days since the dismissal of a key administrator at the community-curated news site.
The Change.org petition describes a lack of confidence in Pao, who petition organizers accuse of ushering in "a new age of censorship" and worry that she will "run Reddit into the ground." The petition, which was launched three weeks ago, grew from 16,000 signatures on Friday to more than 130,000 two days later after the alleged firing of Victoria Taylor, one of the social news site's highest profile administrators.
Pao has been a polarizing figure in Silicon Valley since filing a high-profile discrimination lawsuit against her former employer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Pao, former junior partner with Kleiner Perkins, sought $16 million from the prestigious venture capital firm, alleging she was fired in 2012 after complaining about pervasive sexism. A jury in March rejected her claim, but Pao has said she intends to appeal the verdict.
The petition's growth comes amid a protest over the alleged firing of Taylor, the site's director of talent and a key administrator responsible for overseeing the Ask Me Anything subreddit, a section that allows Reddit users to engage in a real-time Q&A with famous personalities such as Bill Gates, President Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Taylor's reported departure led other moderators of the marquee IAmA subreddit to switch the page's settings to private, rendering the Reddit userbase unable to view the page. Since then, dozens of other subreddits -- each with several million subscribers -- have also been made private, instead re-directing readers to a static landing page.
Taylor's departure is not the only complaint many in the Reddit community have about Pao's leadership abilities, Reddit moderator Gilgamesh explained in an online post.
"As much as Victoria is loved, this reaction is not all a result of her departure: there is a feeling among many of the moderators of reddit that the admins do not respect the work that is put in by the thousands of unpaid volunteers who maintain the communities of the 9,656 active subreddits, which they feel is expressed by, among other things, the lack of communication between them and the admins, and their disregard of the thousands of mods who keep reddit's communities going," Gilgamesh wrote in a Reddit post.
In response to a request for comment on the petition, Reddit spokeswoman said that Pao "has the full support of the team." In an interview with Time magazine published late Friday, Pao apologized for the circumstances surrounding Taylor's departure.
"We handled the transition in a way that caused some disruption, and we should have done a better job," she said.
Pao, who joined Reddit as its business and partnerships strategist in 2013, was named interim CEO of the site in November after the resignation of former CEO Yishan Wong.
Updated at 10:10 a.m. PT with Reddit comment.
THIS WEEK'S MUST READS
Solar Impulse breaks record for longest sun-powered flight
By landing safely in Hawaii after a five-day leg, the Swiss plane -- on an around-the-world trip -- also sets the record for longest solo flight by time.
Hawaii always looks good, but perhaps never as good as it looked to pilot André Borschberg, who broke records Friday after landing a completely sun-powered plane after an arduous five-day flight.
"Just landed in #Hawaii with @solarimpulse! For @bertrandpiccard and I, it's a dream coming true," Borschberg tweeted upon landing, referring to Bertrand Piccard, with whom he is piloting the Solar Impulse 2 around the world.
"I feel exhilarated by this extraordinary journey. I have climbed the equivalent altitude of Mount Everest five times without much rest," Borschberg later added in a statement.
The single-seater Solar Impulse 2 landed around 6 a.m. local time (9 a.m. PT) at Hawaii's Kalaeloa Airport after flying nonstop from Nagoya, Japan, according to Solar Impulse's website, which live-streamed the event. It was the eighth of 13 expected legs of the trip around the globe. Borschberg and Piccard, who co-founded the Swiss outfit Solar Impulse, are taking turns piloting the plane.
The 4,000-mile leg -- considered one of the most dangerous because there was no immediate landing zone if the plane ran into trouble -- set a record for the world's longest solar-powered flight both in terms of time and distance. It also was the longest solo flight by time.
But the landing also furthers Solar Impulse's larger mission: to legitimize the possibility of zero-fuel airplanes in the future. While there are no plans to bring a solar-powered airplane to the passenger industry anytime soon, the Solar Impulse 2 presents a possible alternative to fuel-guzzling airplanes. Environmentalists have long panned airplane manufacturers for their products' heavy use of fuel and have called on agencies around the world to seek new ways to power aircraft.
"What André has achieved is extraordinary from the perspective of a pilot, " Piccard said. "But furthermore, he has also led the technical team during the construction of this revolutionary prototype. It is not only a historic first in aviation it is also a historic first for renewable energies."
The Solar Impulse 2 is completely powered by the sun and made of carbon fiber. At 236 feet (72 meters), the aircraft's wingspan is longer than that of the Boeing 747, but slightly shorter than that of the world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380.
Despite its size, the Solar Impulse 2 weighs less than 5,070 pounds (2,300 kilograms), or about the same as a pickup truck.
Piccard will fly to Phoenix for the next leg before the mission continues to New York, Europe and Abu Dhabi where it all started.
CNET's Don Reisinger contributed to this report.
THIS WEEK'S MUST READS
Prince won't stream music 4 U: Artist drops Spotify, Rdio
After Taylor Swift revived a public debate over payments to artists by streaming-music services, Prince is the next high-profile musician to pull his catalog off some Web venues.
The artist known for "1999" is following the playbook of the artist known for "1989."
Prince is pulling a Taylor Swift, asking for his popular catalog of music to be removed from some streaming-music services.
Don't go to Spotify if you're hoping to hear "Raspberry Beret" or "Kiss." The service's page for Prince now lacks any of his music, instead posting the message: "Prince's publisher has asked all streaming services to remove his catalog. We have cooperated with the request and hope to bring his music back as soon as possible."
The vanishing follows a high-profile exchange between Swift and Apple, which launched its first subscription music service Tuesday. Swift warned she would keep her hit "1989" album off the Apple Music because of a royalty complaint: Apple wouldn't be paying artists any royalties during three-month free trials. Later that same day, Apple made an about-face and capitulated on the free-trial terms. It was reminiscent of Swift's high-profile pull-out from Spotify, a rival music subscription service, in November -- but Spotify and Swift never found common ground.
The saga has made Swift the standard bearer for artists disgruntled by how streaming services compensate them for playing their music. Prince has a storied history with technology -- five years ago, he declared the Internet was "dead" -- but he has been less vocal about the rationale behind his latest move.
Last week, Prince tweeted links and quotes from a Daily Beast article that compared Swift's recent campaigns against streaming royalty structures to Prince's decades-long efforts to regain control over the rights to his master recordings.
But that doesn't explain why his publisher, which is a company Prince founded, has asked some services to remove his catalog but may not have asked others. His catalog has been removed from Spotify and Rdio, and was never part of Apple Music, but it remains available on Google Play Music, the subscription service offered by the search giant, and Tidal, the streamer owned by Jay Z and a lineup of other music megastars. Songs of his were still available on YouTube by Warner Bros. Records, his current label.
In addition, Prince released a new track Wednesday on the streaming service SoundCloud. SoundCloud, among all the major streaming sites, has one of the least mature systems for paying artists, as it lacks any listener subscription options and began including limited advertising to generate revenue only in the last year.
Messages left for Prince's representative and his publisher weren't immediately returned.
Representatives for Google Play Music, YouTube, Rhapsody and Tidal didn't immediately respond with confirmations about Prince in their catalogs.
However, Prince can't keep his songs from streaming everywhere. Services like Pandora aren't exposed to the take-down requests from ticked-off artists because they pay royalties through a statutory system, rather than direct deals with labels and publishers. That means companies including Pandora and Sirius XM play any music they like -- which is why they're the only places you can find the Beatles
So why not enjoy a Prince dance party, courtesy of Songza?
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