From the tread on reddit:

Bizarre allegations by Reddit of Apollo “blackmailing” and “threatening” Reddit

About 24 hours after that call with Reddit, I received this odd message on Mastodon:

“Can you please comment publicly about the internal Reddit claim that you tried to “blackmail” them for a $10,000,000 payout to “stay quiet”?”

Then yesterday, moderators told me they were on a call with CEO Steve Huffman (spez), and he said the following per their transcript:

Steve: “Apollo threatened us, said they’ll “make it easy” if Reddit gave them $10 million.”

Steve: “This guy behind the scenes is coercing us. He’s threatening us.”

Wow. Because my memory is that you didn’t take it as a threat, and you even apologized profusely when you admitted you misheard it. It’s very easy to take a single line and make it look bad by removing all the rest of the context, so let’s look at the full context.

I can only assume you didn’t realize I was recording the call, because there’s no way you’d be so blatantly lying if you did.

As said, a common suggestion across the many threads on this topic was “If third-party apps are costing Reddit so much money, why don’t they just buy them out like they did Alien Blue?” That was the point I brought up. If running Apollo as it stands now would cost you $20 million yearly as you quote, I suggested you cut a check to me to end Apollo. I said I’d even do it for half that or six months worth: $10 million, what a deal!

The bizarre thing is - initially - on the call you interpreted that as a threat. Even giving you the benefit of the doubt that maybe my phrasing was confusing, I asked for you to elaborate on how you found what I said to be a threat, because I was incredibly confused how you interpreted it that way. You responded that I said “Hey, if you want this to go away…” Which is not at all what I said, so I reiterated that I said “If you want to Apollo to go quiet, as in it’s quite loud in terms of API usage”.

What did you then say?

Me: “I said ‘If you want Apollo to go quiet’. Like in terms of- I would say it’s quite loud in terms of its API usage.”

Reddit: “Oh. Go quiet as in that. Okay, got it. Got it. Sorry.”

Reddit: “That’s a complete misinterpretation on my end. I apologize. I apologize immediately.”

The admission that you mistook me, and the four subsequent apologies led me to believe that you acknowledged you mistook me and you were apologetic. The fact that you’re pretending none of this happened (or was recorded), and instead espousing a different reality where instead of apologizing for taking it as a threat, you’re instead going the complete opposite direction and saying “He threatened us!” is so low I almost don’t believe it.

But again, I’ve recorded all my calls with you just in case you tried something like this.

Transcript of this part of the call: https://gist.github.com/christianselig/fda7e8bc5a25aec9824f915e6a5c7014

Audio of this part of the call: http://christianselig.com/apollo-end/reddit-third-call-may-31-end.m4a

(If you take issue with the call being recorded please remember that I’m in Canada and so long as one participant in the call (me) consents to being recorded, it’s legal. If anyone would like the recording of the full call, I’m happy to provide.)

I bring this up for two reasons:

  • I don’t want Reddit slandering me to internal employees or public people by saying I threatened them when they reality is that they immediately apologized for misunderstanding me.
  • It shows why I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I don’t think this situation is recoverable. If Reddit is willing to stoop to such deep lows as to slander individuals with blatant lies to try to get community favor back, I no longer have any faith they want this to work, or ever did.