A conversation with former Reddit product head Dan McComas on the problems with Reddit, Twitter, and the rest of the web.
First, I’ll say there were very few decisions made. I think that the biggest problem that Reddit had and continues to have, and that all of the platforms, Facebook and Twitter, and Discord now continue to have is that they’re not making decisions, is that there is absolutely no active thought going into their problems — problems that are going to exist in coming months or years — and what they can do to combat them. I know firsthand that between 2011 and 2015 or 2016, there was just really no thought going into it until I took over product, Ellen [Pao] took over the CEO role, and Jessica [Moreno] took over the head of community role, and we started trying to think about what was going on and what was going to be happening in the future.
We can talk about those decisions if you want, but I think the more interesting aspect is just why people aren’t thinking about this stuff, and how can we get people to think about this stuff. That’s really half of the premise of why Imzy was started. I think there’s just a complete breakdown in the kind of thought process behind how your technology is going to affect the users that use it and the world at large, and the incentive structure that is behind Silicon Valley start-ups and how they’re formed.
(...) The kind of classic comment that would come up in every board meeting was, “Why aren’t you growing faster?” (...)
I absolutely disagree with a lot of people and think that Facebook has done a better job at this than any other company. I think they have tried to prioritize user safety and they have tried to put processes in place for managing content. I think Twitter is much worse. I think, ultimately, the problem that Reddit has is the same as Twitter and Discord. By focusing on growth and growth only and ignoring the problems, they amassed a large set of cultural norms on their platforms.
There are a couple of subreddits, some of which have been banned and some haven’t, but the FatPeopleHate one was a really bad one. There are a bunch of animal-cruelty subreddits, specifically with a sexual nature, that they would always refuse to ban. The arguments were usually, “We don’t want to touch this because these are our most volatile users and they’ll just make things a nightmare,” and then, ultimately, these things will bubble up, make it into the press, and then we would make a decision to change things. We would deal with the immediate impact, which was painful, would last a week or two, and then it would go away. For the most part, unfortunately, I see them still following this pattern.
(...) I think that the venture capitalists need to kind of reframe their thinking on how these companies look as they start up and grow. I know firsthand that at least the investors that I worked with at Imzy are not ready to undertake that path. Imzy shut down, we still had $8 million in the bank, and we had raised $11 million. I know firsthand the palate of these investors, and from my experience, the majority of Silicon Valley investors are all the same archetype. I think that somebody needs to come along and change their thinking on that. I don’t think that that’s going to happen.
(...) I had conversations with Jason [Citron] a year ago about the problem of white supremacy on his site, and he said, “I don’t want to invade their privacy by going into their channels and reading what they’re doing.” And I said, “They’re gonna cause deaths because you’re not doing that.” And he said, “You really think so?” And I said, “Yeah.” And sure enough they didn’t do anything, and sure enough deaths were caused because of the shit going on in their channels.These things can be foreseen. Don’t be idiots about it. You’re people, you see what’s going on, you see trends that are forming, just fucking do something. It’s not that hard. That’s my advice to founders of start-ups, just be mindful of it. Or put somebody in charge of being mindful of it.
