Reddit's CEO Apologizes

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You have to wonder if Reddit's CEO would have apologized if he didn't get caught. Sure, he's sorry now, but if no one would have caught him, would he have manned up and apologized?

I am sorry: I am sorry for compromising the trust you all have in Reddit, and I am sorry to those that I created work and stress for, particularly over the holidays. It is heartbreaking to think that my actions distracted people from their family over the holiday; instigated harassment of our moderators; and may have harmed Reddit itself, which I love more than just about anything.
 
biggles said:
What did he do?
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"Huffman, also a Reddit co-founder, landed in hot water Wednesday after admitting that he used his administrative powers to secretly edit user comments that were critical of him on r/The_Donald — a popular, pro-Trump forum (or “subreddit”). He swapped all mentions of his own username with the names of the pro-Trump group's leaders, meaning that expletive-laden posts aimed at him looked instead as if they were insulting the group's leaders."

source - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...y-editing-their-posts/?utm_term=.6661a2b3b207
 
Hehe only took him a week to apologize, his post admitting it was pretty lackluster ("I shouldn’t play such games")
 
AH, the cesspool that is reddit. But seriously, what did he hope to gain by trolling his own baby.
 
I expect he didn't think of it at the time as such a big deal, so I don't think he would of apologized before since it was likely viewed as insignificant. Being caught is sometimes what it takes to shine light onto the seriousness of an action and how lessons are learned. In this case being caught made it obvious how serious his actions were, then he apologized.

A thought: I'm sure he made it obvious it was him editing it, but if it was just known to be "an admin" that was making changes, I expect after the backlash he may of come forward even if he hadn't been directly fingered.
 
Maybe a criminal charge of hacking for each message altered and further a civil suit of defamation/libel for each message with a changed target will drive home the seriousness of his "games".
 
If this was 4chan I'd tell him to kill himself. Honestly he sounds pretty self important I might register to tell him that.

I don't use Reddit though. Never have, never will.
 
OpenSource said:
I really despise the word "bullies" and "toxic" in the context of the Internet.
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They're overused but apt; anonymity, particularly in an increasingly puritanical society(politically speaking), brings the worst of us to the surface.
 
ChoGGi said:
No it wasn't obvious "FUCK /u/spez" --> "FUCK /u/Trumpshaker"
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Isn't /u/spez him? Once you find out there was an edit, wouldn't people think it was the person whose name used to be there? I guess he could of claimed it was someone else editing his name into someone elses. I would think everyone would of thought it was him immediately upon discovery that an edit was made.
 
AaronGant said:
A thought: I'm sure he made it obvious it was him editing it, but if it was just known to be "an admin" that was making changes, I expect after the backlash he may of come forward even if he hadn't been directly fingered.
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From what I read, he did a direct SQL update that left zero evidence of the changes in the forum interface. The funny thing about it is there is no way the people he did this to wouldn't have noticed.
 
As I said in another thread F him and oh I need some A wipe to wipe my arse with. His apology letter will do the trick.....
 
Stiletto said:
Kyle shut it down without a hint of irony.
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It had gone far enough off topic and full of vitriol, it was time for that thread to close. Comparing that to changing peoples' post is quite different. The only person I really mess with around here is rat and I would never actually change what he posted.

Sure, posts get deleted when they break the rules, but changing posts? Wow. I might have done it as a joke once or twice, but it was a very public thing too, not the bullshit the reddit dude is pulling.
 
AaronGant said:
Isn't /u/spez him? Once you find out there was an edit, wouldn't people think it was the person whose name used to be there?
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Obvious to me would've been adding an "edited by spez" or some such (as a decent joke after all that pedo stuff), people did think that which is why there's this whole ongoing brouhaha. I've personally found it pretty entertaining, what'd people expect from Reddit after all :)
 
My blacklist of sites is way longer than the number I visit now. I basically goto the H and TechReport and man is life socially depressing. I'd love to attempt those other sites like Reddit and Facebook but I keep deleting/abandoning my accounts after dealing with all the stupid people there.
 
Dead Parrot said:
Maybe a criminal charge of hacking for each message altered and further a civil suit of defamation/libel for each message with a changed target will drive home the seriousness of his "games".
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Don't be an idiot. It is not hacking to change your own website.

As for defamation/libel, don't quit your day job because you know nothing about law. In order for them to win a defamation suit, they would have to prove damages because editing someone's post like that doesn't qualify as defamation per se. In addition, Steve Huffman would have an action against the Branch Trumpidians for accusing him of being in league with pedophiles and that IS defamation per se.
 
Sounds almost like a prank more than anything. He didnt change the content of posts to alter their opinions, he simply directed a bunch of posts towards the people who run that forum so that they would become inundated with whatever rage was being spewed.
 
It was a sorry not sorry type of speech. In the end making special rules for one subreddit just drives people to hate you more. The change to /all should have been made universal, not just for the donald. It doesn't help that people leaked the mod chats that show them wanting to silence these people because they disagree with them. It is funny to see spez tell people they need to follow the rules in a thread about how he broke one of them. Right now the altright guys can play the victim as well because of what has been leaked and the comments one of their people had with an admin.

On a side note I do have to laugh that Ellen Pao posted in the thread. He said she wasn't an engineer so she wouldn't have known how but even if she did know how she was smart enough not too. She said this:

"Yeah, there's no comparison. I would have immediately fired anyone who did that."

The funny thing is reddit still has a bunch of bad subreddits on it. I mean if they wanted to crack down on the bad people subreddits like shoplifting would be gone.
 
Reddit is worthless. Anyone can join and gang up on anyone from multiple fake accounts.
A paid forum like our Genmay tends to weed out multiple fake accounts as the trolls who use fake accounts, tend to live from government check to government check.

Yeah, Kyle Rick-rolls us once in a while but no one is immune. Definitely not like the candy-ass CEO of Reddit..
 
Stiletto said:
They're overused but apt; anonymity, particularly in an increasingly puritanical society(politically speaking), brings the worst of us to the surface.
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I agree that it brings out the worst but that's the point. It is what made the Internet interesting. Unless you put your personal information out there I don't see how comments from an anonymous asshole can really be harmful to someone. If [H] were Reddit 90% of us would be considered toxic and bullies.

What do some of these people do in person when they encounter a real bully/asshole. Try telling a cop that someone didn't agree with you and called you a bad name.
 
burton14e7 said:
I guess I'm a horrible person, I think what he did is funny.
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Correct me if I am wrong. Funny or not. Isn't it actually a criminal offense?

At the very least he just removed Reddits 230 protections against liability.
 
Krazy925 said:
If this was 4chan I'd tell him to kill himself. Honestly he sounds pretty self important I might register to tell him that.

I don't use Reddit though. Never have, never will.
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It has it uses, some really helpful people on there; but the amount of noise to sift through is almost staggering!
 
Naieve said:
Correct me if I am wrong. Funny or not. Isn't it actually a criminal offense?

At the very least he just removed Reddits 230 protections against liability.
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I don't know about criminal offense, but the sum of these recent actions definitely make Reddit forfeit their liability protections.
 
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