Reddit CEO tells employees ‘this will pass’ in response to major chaos at site

CEO Steve Huffman suggests staff may avoid wearing Reddit clothing for fear of reprisals

(Getty Images)

The current outrage at Reddit will “pass”, its chief executive has said, as the site continues to deal with one of its most significant protests ever.

In recent days, many of the site’s largest forums have gone “dark”, as moderators set them to private, meaning they cannot be seen by the world. The changes also meant that Reddit became overwhelmed and stopped working for a brief period on Monday.

That was a response to a move by Reddit to start charging for access to its data, which meant that third-party apps for viewing the forum became unsustainable.

Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman said that the protest was a “challenge” and “we have our work cut out for us”. Staff have been working around the clock to deal with technical problems and engage with the moderators who run those forums, he said in a memo that was first reported by The Verge.

He also said that the company has “not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor”.

“There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen,” he wrote.

“Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well. The most important things we can do right now are stay focused, adapt to challenges, and keep moving forward.”

He suggested that while two biggest third-party apps had announced they would be shutting down, along with some others. But he said that others were still in “conversations” with the company.

Mr Huffman also advised staff that they should be “mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public”. “Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations.”

He also claimed that “starting last night, about a thousand subreddits have gone private”. That is far below third-party estimates, which suggest that the vast majority of the thousands of the site’s forums have gone dark.

Reddit’s chief executive has been at the heart of the fallout over the changes at the site. He conducted an ask me anything session on the site, intended on quelling protest – but which was met with widespread criticism from the site’s users and moderators.

Unlike other social networks such as Facebook, Reddit relies on unpaid moderators to check the content and administer the posts on its forums. As such, those moderators are able to make changes to the forums as they wish.