Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has resigned from the board of his company, urging the company to replace him with a black candidate. Alexis, who is married to Serena Williams, also says he will be using his future gains in Reddit to serve Black communities.
In the meantime though, Ohanian has pledged $1 million to Colin Kaepernicks, Know Your Rights Camp. The former NFL star’s camp works to “advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities. It plans to do this through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization to elevate the next generation of change leaders”.
The Reddit co-founder took to Twitter to announce his resignation. Prior to the resignation, a number of popular Reddit communities went private and even banned new posts in protest of the company’s hate speech policies. Moderators of some Reddit communities also called out Alexis’ co-founder and current CEO Steve Huffman, for not taking any action against racism. Instead, giving a platform to some of the site’s most racially dividing communities.
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I’ve resigned as a member of the reddit board, I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate, + I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and I’m starting with a pledge of $1M to @kaepernick7’s @yourrightscamp
— Alexis Ohanian Sr. 🚀 (@alexisohanian) June 5, 2020
This follows the resignation of Reddit’s former CEO, Ellen Pao. Pao had also “called out” the site on Twitter. This happened after Reddit tweeted an anti-racism statement in the wake of the protests around the country.
I am obligated to call you out: You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence. So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don’t get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long https://t.co/VN5XCiYp5g
— Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) June 2, 2020
Huffman in a statement said that the company will be honoring Ohanian’s request to replace him with a black candidate.
“We’re working with mods to change our content policy to explicitly address hate. I want to take responsibility for the history of our policies over the years that got us here, and we still have work to do,” Huffman said.
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