[calcol]

She did, in fact, attempt to reply to early discussions on Reddit but she was downvoted into oblivion (e.g. -5500+ down votes) and she wasn't ever going to be heard, no matter how relevant or important her discussion was. So she probably thought it was smarter (and would get better exposure while the community cools down a little bit) to communicate with Buzzfeed et. al.

[bmm6o]

Yeah, I've heard that, and that's crazy too. The community actually has a veto on communications from the CEO? Absolutely nuts. They couldn't just hack the backend to give her a billion upvotes?

[Niten]

Much of this controversy is driven by the community's loss of trust in the site's administration. Do you think the tactic you suggest would be constructive toward rebuilding that trust?

[bmm6o]

Faking upvotes, no. But that wouldn't be necessary if they had an actual communication channel in place ahead of time. Which they would if they really understood the value of the community and what it takes to manage it.

[tripzilch]

No, but they do have a blog.