Why Was Victoria Taylor Fired? Reddit's "AMA" Leader Breaks Silence Online

"Hi there, Victoria here." That’s how canned Redditor Victoria Taylor broke her silence late Wednesday night. After the leader of the site's popular "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) forum was fired -- for reasons that have not been revealed -- she thanked her supporters for the encouragement they gave her over an “interesting” weekend. Naturally, Taylor posted her statement to Reddit from her username, “chooter.”

“I’ll never forget my time at Reddit," Taylor wrote. "You allowed me to be a part of some of the greatest conversations of our time, and it was an honor to be your ambassador. I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who have reached out,” she wrote.

Taylor didn’t say where she would go next. But that’s because she doesn’t know herself. “I know many of you may be curious about what’s next for me, and I'm still figuring that out. However, I can assure you, wherever the road leads, I will live up to the faith you’ve had in me,” she said.

Taylor also didn’t provide any insight on why she was fired. It’s been insinuated that Taylor didn’t want to try new AMA formats, like incorporating video, Gawker wrote, citing a now-deleted post on Quora by Marc Bodnick, the Business and Community Leader of the site.

The Reddit community was infuriated to learn about her departure last week. They even staged a blackout, in which volunteers who run subreddits shut down the pages. The blackout began after Taylor was fired without an explanation and without a backup plan. Taylor was the liaison between moderators and administrators, so without her, Reddit's moderators were left without assistance in organizing planned AMA sessions.

Since her dismissal, many Redditors have called for interim CEO Ellen Pao to step down. Pao apologized for the “miscommunication,” but moderators maintain there was no communication whatsoever.

"Moderators and AMA guests were left stranded" without Taylor, two moderators wrote in an op-ed piece for the New York Times. The move to fire her shows "a reckless disregard for the company's own business and for the work the moderators and users put into the site," they added.

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