Biography
Courtnie Swearingen is an attorney and a longtime volunteer moderator of Reddit's r/IAmA community, which hosts the platform's celebrity and newsmaker 'ask me anything' sessions. In July 2015, after Reddit abruptly dismissed the staff member Victoria Taylor, who had coordinated AMAs, Swearingen co-authored a New York Times op-ed with fellow moderator Brian Lynch explaining why moderators had taken r/IAmA and many other subreddits dark in protest, an episode widely dubbed AMAgeddon. The op-ed argued that Reddit's management repeatedly made significant changes without regard for the unpaid volunteer moderators who sustain the site, and it became one of the defining public statements of the 2015 moderator revolt that preceded interim chief executive Ellen Pao's resignation. Swearingen chose to be publicly named as a moderator advocating for better treatment of the volunteers who run Reddit's communities.