Steve Huffman Takes Over As The Returning CEO Of Reddit; Ellen Pao Resigned Under A Mutual Agreement?

Steve Huffman, Reddit's previous CEO and co-founder, is replacing Ellen Pao as the CEO after Pao resigned due to the escalating tension after a chain of conflict and issues between the top management and subreddits that has brought chaos on its online community. On the other hand, Pao will still stay at Reddit as an advisor.

After a number of offensive criticisms and death threats that she had received, Ellen Pao has just resigned as the CEO of the online news website, confirmed on July 10 on Reddit.

Steve Huffman himself bared it out posting it, "Hey Everyone, I'm Steve, aka spez, the new CEO around here. For those of you who don't know me, I founded reddit ten years ago with my college roommate Alexis, aka kn0thing. Since then, reddit has grown far larger than my wildest dreams. I'm so proud of what it's become, and I'm very excited to be back."

Right through Pao's tenure, Reddit not only restricted quite a lot of subreddits over harassment distresses, the company also terminated Victoria Taylor, the website's director of talent. Because of that, subreddit moderators complained over the forum to voice out their disgust of the decision. Pao as the CEO then made an apology, but that did not suppress the community's anger.

Victoria Taylor has been involved in crafting the site's 'Ask Me Anything' section where celebrities take on a question-and-answer stint with Reddit users. The feature enticed well-known participants and had made a persistent adoration in the public. But then on July 1, turmoil sloped when Jesse Jackson dropped subjective responses to an impolite query, followed by an extremely confrontational argument about races. Even so, Reddit did not confirm that this incident reported on Gawker has directed them to firing Taylor.

A report from Engadget revealed that although Ellen Pao left the position as a CEO, she will remain in the company as an advisor.

So it seems that Pao's signing off was a settlement between her and the company. Consequently, Reddit still aspires to do better with more transparency on its content guidelines and a more developed communication with Reddit moderators as Huffman takes over.