
Reddit CEO admits he secretly edited comments from Donald Trump supporters - idleist
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/23/reddit-huffman-trump/
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Natsu
Related discussion can be found here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031)

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defgeneric
This could cause a meltdown that will make previous reddit meltdowns look
tame.

Facebook higher-ups have been fired for creeping on ex-girlfriends. This is
arguably worse--editing user's posts has huge legal repercussions. I would be
pissed if I was a board member of reddit right now. A CEO is empowered and
paid for exercising good judgment and leading people, not "trolling the trolls
a bit" by violating the site's fundamental rules and creating a storm of bad
press in doing so.

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pulisse
_editing user 's posts has huge legal repercussions_

Keep smoking that good stuff, SV.

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redthrowaway
It was a stupid decision, but it's not nefarious. He got pinged every time
someone wrote "fuck /u/spez" in /r/the_donald, and he got sick of it. So he
changed "/u/spez" to the members of the /r/the_donald mod team so they would
get pinged instead.

Professional? No. But not nefarious, either.

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gormo2
I agree it was not nefarious, but it was a decision that shows unbelievably
poor judgement, especially for a CEO. I'd be surprised if he keeps his
position. He's undermined his fundamental role as the leader of one of the
biggest social media sites by violating the trust that users put into the
site's administration.

The context as I understand it involves some ravenous hordes of conspiracy-
theory redditors promulgating fake news stories and doxxing innocent people.
However, by changing the text of these users comments, whatever their actions,
and by admitting to it, Steve has opened the floodgates. Now there is no
question -- in the minds of these users -- that the site is truly "against
them" and willing to not only censor them but to rewrite history as they see
it. They can no longer trust anything they read on the site.

But what is worse is the effect and message this sends to normal users. How
can, for instance, any person safely participate in an AMA now? When the real
possibility exists to have their words changed out from under them, and no way
to prove they aren't in fact the author? And from that, why would anyone post
anything potentially personally identifiable, if (in their mind) some
disgruntled admin could modify what they said to include false yet humiliating
or criminal things (e.g., throw in racial epithets, link to porn, admit
adultery / drug use) that might eventually link back to them. And how far does
this go? Can admins send PMs under the name of other users? What else? To me
at least, the scary thing is that Reddit posts that _only obliquely_ reference
personal information have already been used as the basis for surveillance and
legal action [1]...

And taking one final step back, from a business side this drama goes beyond
just being unprofessional. Reddit posts are now often linked to from news
articles. How can the media trust the source they link to? If the content of
posts are 'up for grabs' to be edited by admins in the minds of users and the
media (even if they aren't in reality), then one of Reddit's functions that is
growing in importance -- that is, news-making -- may be stymied.

Harming trust is extremely dangerous for social platforms. And when it is the
CEO themselves doing the harm, it could very well border on being suicidal for
the site.

[1]
[https://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/58hae4/what_is_a_...](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/58hae4/what_is_a_piece_of_reddit_history_every_redditor/d90lago/)

~~~
_up
I agree that this behavior is very bad and reddit lost a lot of trust. As I
understand it pizzagate wasn't entirely fabricated "fake news". Instead it
originated from strange code word ridden Podesta and Straftor Mails, that
where published by wikileaks.

