For those who have no idea what Prop 19 is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_19

Basically, a marijuana legalisation proposal.

Does running the ads for free count as a donation to the prop 19 campaign, and possibly trigger reporting obligations on the part of Conde Nast?

>This was a decision made at the highest levels of Conde Nast.

Doesn't this put the lie to their "we're our own business and don't have anything to do with Conde Nast, that's why we need your charity" line?

Since we're not allowed to benefit financially, reddit is now running the ads for free.

Nice hack, reddit.

Because it doesn't want their money, so reddit is now running them for free:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ads/comments/d68xv/reddit_is_now_run...

I wonder why Conde Nast even bought reddit in the first place.

It's cool that they let them run the web site as an independent entity more or less, but it really seems like they don't like supporting them (see Reddit Gold).

The fact that they're running them for free is kinda interesting. Going from corporate censoring the ads, to reddit essentially giving the campaign a huge contribution. It'll be interesting to see what the fall-out from this is.

I'm not familiar with Conde Nast's publications. Do they traditionally avoid political issue ads? If so I don't see any good reason why Reddit would be an exception. It sounds like they want to avoid the issue entirely and won't run anti Prob 19 ads either. I don't think that's unreasonable. I also have to question the value of any pro Prob 19 group spending money to advertise on Reddit. They'd be better off targeting the mainstream voter.

"As a corporation, Conde Nast does not want to benefit financially from this particular issue"

I think that's fair. I can't fault them for that.

Am I the only one who has no problem with a parent company not wanting pro-marijuana ads running on their sites? They legitimately own Reddit, it seems rather childish that Reddit is "rebelling" by running the ads for free.

Well, this will have the opposite effect. It seems Conde Nast doesn't understand their product very well.

Title isn't true, Conde Naste has no problem running Prop. 19 ads, as long as your viewpoints align with theirs.

http://www.reddit.com/r/prop19/duplicates/cx665/no_on_19_ad_...

After all these years, it looks like the publishing industry is still threatened by marijuana.

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Gentlemen, if you disable you ad blockers and visit Reddit you will see that the Prop 19 advert is now visible.

Ahh, green; the color of money.