Reddit Co-Founder Resigns and Wants Black Candidate to Take Over

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    Alexis Ohanian twitter

    Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian has stepped down and has urged members to fill the spot with somebody from the black community. Alexis Ohanian has reportedly taken such a step for the sake of his daughter and “chiefly to curb racial hate.” He said that later on, he could be answerable to his daughter about his actions.

    The U.S. still continues to see protests against unjustified police brutality after the police in Minneapolis killed an unarmed black man, George Floyd. 

    This was Alexis Ohanian’s way of showing support and solidarity for the ongoing nationwide protests that have taken over the U.S. There were a series of tweets on his Twitter handle which gave out the message that he wants to be able to tell his daughter that he stood up against the atrocities meted out to black people.  

    Alexis Ohanian is married to Serena Williams and he said that the resignation is an “act of leadership” from people who are in power and can responsibly bring about a change and asked protestors to keep continuing to fight for their cause.

    Ohanian also announced in his tweet that the future gains of Reddit’s stock will be invested in the interest of the black community and to primarily serve them better. That amount could total to around $50 million, according certain dependable sources.

    He would also be giving away an amount of $1 million to the Know Your Rights Camp, an organization that is founded by Colin Kaepernick, which concentrates its works around self-empowerment, safety and protection for black and brown communities

    Alexis resigned in less than a week after former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao called out the current CEO Steve Huffman for not standing up against a particular subreddit which has been promoting Donald Trump and all the racial discrimintion that was thrown around. Pao quoted in her tweet that the platform does not tolerate hate, violence and racism.” 

    Reddit’s support towards Donald Trump and also glorifying him have not been well accepted by many users of the platform. This has also led to users calling out the platform for not having a stance against such blatant racism. Reddit stands for and promotes free speech and has been used by users and groups to send across a message during such protests. 

    Tech companies, for far too long, have been criticized and called out for their clear lack of inclusveness of black leadership at many such levels. This relects a failing of having an adequate amount of policies that are surrounded to safeguard races especially black and brown communities. 

    Facebook took a stand and banned white nationalism just a year ago. Facebook, of late, has also been criticised for not standing up against racism but Twitter and Snapchat are some of those social media sites which have maintained and held a clear stand against racism. 

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