3 upvotes, 0 direct replies (showing 0)
View submission: What would I do?
You're nailing it! The (bolded) insight you have, even though it is anchored in what should seem like a common-sense approach to create a savvy and profitable business endeavour, is directly opposed to the egos and White supremacy that you also identify as ingrained within the Reddit company. Their deliberate ignorance and resistance to change is another flavor of the systemic privilege and institutionalized violence that we've seen come to a head over the past week.
I've personally experienced the oppression and racism of the technocratic Silicon Valley mindset that you mention: if you can imagine the admins' attitudes and disregard for diversity+humanity coming together to actually try to manage a subreddit "community," I can give you a glimpse of what it actually looked like in /r/SanFrancisco as a microcosm of what is happening to the Reddit platform at-large (including eventually what the wasteland might look like).
Behind the scenes, moderators resented rather than welcomed my perspective, and were especially disdainful toward my background in understanding how community dynamics work. When I communicating with them about trends, insights, and pitfalls that I spotted within the subreddit, my messages were met with gaslighting, and I was tone-policed through their egotistical moderation based on "civility." As the ultimate indicator of their intolerance, I was eventually banned.
Unsurprisingly, they have only spiraled to encourage an incredibly toxic subreddit in /r/SanFrancisco since then -- **creating a virtual enclave for their technocratic White perspective, instead of a subreddit that should represent one of the most diverse and vibrant cities in the country.** If you go to /r/SanFrancisco now, you'll find sprinklings of pro-police rhetoric, political propaganda (aligned with the former-Admin moderator's beliefs), and then the majority of the only content that is contributed and that survives in that subreddit now is just pretty photos from tourists and recent transplants (i.e. folks who proudly gentrify the region with no awareness of their own racism).
There's nothing here!