Alexis Ohanian Quotes

Reddit is where anyone can come and tell their real story.

We recognized from the beginning that we could create profiles for the bands and allow people to use the site any way they wanted to. We didn't stop people from promoting whatever they wanted to promote on MySpace.

Reddit has attracted a lefty, libertarian audience since the beginning.

The App Store has democratized the creation of content. As a 12-year-old kid, I was able to put my application on the store. No one knows who's behind the screen so you can't tell I'm a 12-year-old.

Personally I find the democratic chaos of the Internet fascinating, and for the most part really benign.

One of the great joys of launching your idea on the web is that it's a meritocracy. The good stuff will rise to the top and find an audience, and you don't have to impress one idiosyncratic commissioning editor.

4chan is a framework of pictures and text. I've always been extremely hands-off with dictating what gets posted, past general categories and rules. I support providing a place to discuss anything, although I don't agree with everything that's posted.

The great thing about YouTube is there are no gatekeepers. No one is waiting to tell you if you're good enough. It's just your audience.

People put their voice everywhere. All through Instagram comments. As minuscule and kind of stupid as that is, at the same time, it's dope. People really feel like, 'I have to say something,' which is sometimes a little much, but like, 'Go ahead, man. Speak away.'

There is no casting director; there is no producer monitoring your upload button. Anyone that looks like anyone can upload a video. I think YouTube and the digital space does set a really good example for the rest of the industry in that sense.

Creative freedom and self-expression is what MySpace is all about.

Reddit is a network where someone with a million karma points has an equal shot as someone with 10 karma points to hit the #1 post or comment.

Companies like YouTube will continue to be tested on their commitment to the mission that made them such popular and profitable websites - providing an open platform to a wide range of ideas from around the world.

I think it's really great that people share their work [on Myspace] and no one is paying for it. I think that's a very healthy thing and it's not a corporate thing.

Anything can be said and, in consequence, written about anything.

In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be affected by their social class.

We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought.

Possibly worst of all, from the standpoint of the dedicated enemies of freedom, the Internet is a world that libertarians - having been marginalized for three decades by the establishment media - have made their own, almost without effort. It's an alternative reality (unlike 'meat-space' we live in) in which - exactly like intelligence, bravery, or virtue - the human capacity for violence is not additive, and in which it's impossible to initiate force against anybody.

I have always in my own thought summed up individual liberty, and business liberty, and every other kind of liberty, in the phrase that is common in the sporting world, 'A free field and no favor.'

Twitter wanted to become a more egalitarian justice system, but instead it became a draconian one.

In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority's viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular.

Right now it is illegal for a service provider to censor or block a site because they don't like it or to privilege someone who pays them extra money. So it's basically a level playing field. I think it was a great victory. It doesn't solve all the problems of our time, but I think we've gotten a much better place.

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.

Fairness means everyone gets what they need. And the only way to get what you need is to make it happen yourself.

We live in a moment when the dream of equal opportunity is within reach.