Reddit admin Alexis Ohanian runs the PR firm Antique Jetpack with reddit GM Erik Martin. Take a look at their website, funny that for a large PR firm there would be so little information on the company- or even a way to contact them.

Have you heard of Antique Jetpack[1] ? Antique Jetpack is a marketing firm that we only know about because of the Stratfor leaks. It's run by Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin. Ohanian is a co-founder of reddit, and Martin is reddit's General Manager.

Until about two days ago, Ohanian was the #3 mod on /r/technology, the #2 mod on /r/gadgets, the #2 mod on /r/apple, and the #3 mod on /r/business .

In the Daily Dot article, they reference what Alexis said yesterday on Twitter: "i haven't been an active mod on any subreddits in years, when I realized I was still a mod, I deactivated." The thing about that is, I messaged him about a month ago (and he replied), referencing the fact that he was the #3 mod of /r/technology and pointing out the conflict of interests that creates re: Antique Jetpack.

In other words that tweet, which implies that he very recently realized he was still a mod on /r/technology and removed himself when he remembered, is a lie. I'd be very interested in hearing from Alexis what the "Antique Jetpack line of business" entails--not that I'd necessarily take what he'd have to say at face value, given his history of evasiveness and deflection. Still, it would be nice to have his explanation of what Antique Jetpack does on the record.

When I mentioned his meeting with Stratfor on behalf of his marketing firm, Antique Jetpack, he indicated that at the time he only knew of Stratfor as a news wire, and not as a global intelligence firm. This belies the fact that if you use the wayback machine to grab a screenshot of Stratfor's website from around the time of the meeting, you'll see that the first tab after "Home" is "Intelligence." Pick any date around the time of the meeting, and "Intelligence" is featured prominently. What other "news wire" has an "Intelligence" section--especially one featured so prominently?

TL;DR: Alexis is duplicitous, and he runs a PR firm we were never supposed to have heard of. He also met with Stratfor on behalf of that PR firm, and had himself positioned optimally within reddit's structure to manipulate content on behalf of clients until within the last 48 hours.

If you don't know about Stratfor, it is an intelligence firm that works closely with the CIA. What better company to pitch your PR firm to than one likely involved in propaganda. Completely sickening.

Reddit claims to be in the red consistently for years, even with being one of the top sites in the world. This is likely a lie. Reddit is incredibly profitable, though most of their income is off the record, so it simply appears to be losing money.

https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=277352