Reddit to honor Ohanian's request to appoint Black director, and address anti-Black hate

• Founder to leave Reddit, saying resignation can be ‘act of leadership’
• Reddit promises to update content moderation policies to “explicitly address hate” within weeks

Earlier today, we told you that Reddit's Alexis Ohanian was resigning from the Reddit board, asked the company to fill his seat with a Black candidate, and said he'd donate further proceeds from Reddit to anti-racism causes beginning with a $1M pledge to Colin Kaepernick's “Know Your Rights Camp.”

Now, Reddit has responded.

Reports Hannah Murphy at the Financial Times:

In a lengthy statement later on Friday, Steve Huffman, Reddit’s chief executive, said that the company would “honour” the request by Mr Ohanian that his successor be a black candidate.

He added the company would update its content moderation policies to “explicitly address hate”, adding that the timeline would be “weeks, not months” if moderators of individual forums engage in the process.

“[Our] current policy lists only what you cannot do, articulates none of the values behind the rules, and does not explicitly take a stance on hate or racism,” he said. “We will update our content policy to include a vision for Reddit and its communities to aspire to, a statement on hate, the context for the rules, and a principle that Reddit isn’t to be used as a weapon.”

Read more:
Reddit pledges to appoint black director after Ohanian quits
[ft.com]

[via techmeme]