What in the world would cause thousands of people to call Ellen Pao a 'Nazi'?

by Mamamia Team June 12, 2015

Do better, Internet.

An army of trolls is marching against the CEO of Reddit, Ellen Pao, after she introduced a new anti-harassment policy for the site.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, Reddit is a website for entertainment, social networking and news, where registered community members can submit their own content.

It is part online bulletin-board, part rabbit-hole, where you can while away the hours watching absurd videos, laughing at ridiculous pictures and cringing at the candid confessions of Internet-users from across the globe.

Or, you know, copping homophobic, transphobic, fat-shaming, misogynistic, racist abuse from complete strangers.

Whatever you’re into.

Reddit CEO Ellen Pao.

Administrators of the site have typically taken a hands-off approach to managing it’s content, but have finally decided that enough is enough.

Under the new policy announced yesterday, threads that are deemed to be abusive may be taken down.

“Today we are announcing a change in community management on reddit,” the statement from Pao reads.

“Our goal is to enable as many people as possible to have authentic conversations and share ideas and content on an open platform. We want as little involvement as possible in managing these interactions but will be involved when needed to protect privacy and free expression, and to prevent harassment.

“It is not easy to balance these values, especially as the Internet evolves. We are learning and hopefully improving as we move forward.”

The statement from Reddit. Via Reddit.

Sounds pretty reasonable, right?

Surely it would be a good thing to create a space online where people can interact and share the absurd joyousness of the web without having to mine through shit piles of disgusting and disturbing abuse, yeah?

INCORRECT.

As Pao states only five sub-reddits have been removed so far. FIVE.

Two of those were dedicated to fat-shaming, one to transphobia, one to racism and one to harassing members of a progressive video game site.

YOU FUCKING MONSTER PAO HOW COULD YOU??!

The backlash from users has been swift and sadly, predictably even, it has been utterly utterly foul.

For example. Via Reddit.

Type “Ellen Pao” into the search bar and literally thousands of results come up.

There are innumerable comparisons of Pao’s ‘totalitarian’ regime to Nazism (because calling for greater tolerance online is akin to fascism and genocide, duh).

There is horrendous name-calling.

There are disgusting photo shopped images of Pao being sodomised and there deeply personal attacks on her appearance, her abilities and her personal life.

A petition has even sprung up calling for her immediate resignation. Because obviously what the world needs is one less female CEO for Christ’s sake.

Here are just a few of the reactions (post continues after gallery):

Reddit reactions.

REALLY, THE INTERNET??! Fucking do better.

If women aren’t discriminated against enough in, um, THE WHOLE WORLD, you just have to look online for new and more repulsive ways to insult them.

Watch these famous women read mean tweets about themselves (post continues after video):

Oh and don’t forget minority groups, the LGBTQI community, disabled people, people of colour — there’s plenty of unfounded abuse to go around!

It’s called free speech, man.

How dare someone say ‘hey, maybe we could be a little more tolerant of one another?’ and how dare that person be a woman.