>Jackson's AMA went badly, he/his team was specifically pissed at Victoria and demanded consequences, threatening a public campaign against reddit.
This is a very plausible conjecture, especially in view of admins' comments in wake of the fatpeoplehate ban explicitly permitting racist anti-black subreddits to continue to operate. This could have become an existential threat to reddit. In view of that, and their apparent weathering of past anti-user controversies, a user revolt would seem like the lesser evil from a short-sighted perspective.
This is a very plausible conjecture, especially in view of admins' comments in wake of the fatpeoplehate ban explicitly permitting racist anti-black subreddits to continue to operate. This could have become an existential threat to reddit. In view of that, and their apparent weathering of past anti-user controversies, a user revolt would seem like the lesser evil from a short-sighted perspective.