Megan McArdle warns that “cleaning up” Reddit might end up killing the patient:
On Monday, when I wrote about the travails of Ellen Pao at Reddit, I noted that cleaning up the troll-infested caves of its vast ecosystem will not be an easy task for anyone. Its freewheeling, “anything goes” culture is a big part of its appeal to users, and the large number of users is a big part of Reddit‘s appeal to investors. It’s also worth noting that this approach is substantially cheaper than trying to keep a close eye on Reddit‘s ever-expanding universe of subreddits.
But Reddit really seems to want to tidy things up a bit, or at least force the trolls down to the basement where they won’t frighten the visitors. Steve Huffman, a Reddit co-founder who is returning as Pao’s successor, has announced that the company will continue to take steps to curtail undesirable content. Potentially offensive forums will require users to opt in, and anything that “harasses, bullies, or abuses” will be entirely off limits. So a forum whose title is a vile racist slur will be reclassified for opt-in status. But the “Raping Women” forum will be banned outright.
Huffman is laying out some much clearer guidelines than Pao did, which is a good first step (and exactly what I said Pao should have done). On the other hand, that’s no guarantee that this will prevent users from staging a mass exodus.
