Well, well well… this could be interesting.

It seems that the same company which bought up majority stock in Reddit — now going through a censorship meltdown — also owns a bunch of the media outlets which both kicked off and proceeded to bash the #GamerGate movement last year.

Advance Publications is one of the 50 largest companies in the US; you might never have heard of them, but they’ve been in the news business since the 1800s. In terms of big-name outlets, they own Wired, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Vogue and GQ, all of which have done hit-pieces on #GamerGate in furtherance of their more fringe-y companies like Ars Technica.

Notice that all of the big names above are “trendsetter” magazines. They exist to tell people looking for the next big thing what that either is, or should be. Their editors usually think of themselves as edgy, ahead of the curve, and usually they’re wrong (psychic hotlines being roughly the same thing but more expensive).

It seems that Advance is less about news and more about social politics — which is at the core of most if not all accusations about #GamerGate being a “hate group” out to “run women out of video games”.

Which also seems VERY much in line with the rash of crazed forum-deletion policies being pushed on Reddit by its new CEO, Ellen Pao. Advance acquired Reddit in 2011, as part of its buyout of Condé Nast, and what’s going on now seems to be a total betrayal of its then-newly-incorporated mission statement… until you read the finer print:

We also now have the latitude to address some global issues. The reddit team, our Board, our informal advisors, and many in the reddit community sincerely believe that reddit has the potential, over the next generation, to positively impact journalism, civic engagement, fundraising, product development, and learning.

OH REALLY. Very interesting indeed.