

Interview With Reddit Troll, 'Violentacrez' (video) - mikek
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/19/interview-with-reddit-troll-violentacrez-on-anderson-cooper-video/

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sergiotapia
On the one hand I feel bad for his wife, she's suffering over something she
had nothing to do with. Her husband lost his job and now she has no health
care insurance.

On the other hand, this guy was posting a TON of offensive, downright
disgusting content. He was stupid enough to share his personal information
with someone online, that's his fault.

Doing stupid shit online + sharing who you are in real life (even to a single
person) = you're going to have a bad time.

~~~
w1ntermute
> now she has no health care insurance.

More than anything else, this is yet another condemnation of the American
health care system.

~~~
ericclemmons
Joining healthcare to a single place of employment was a mistake from the very
beginning. Luckily, health care is comparable when purchased separately,
depending on obvious factors.

------
naner
It seems like he is only remorseful because he got caught. And as Cooper
pointed out: he only mentions the negative impact on himself and his family
(what about the girls whose photos he posted?) and tries to shift most of the
responsibility to Reddit.

~~~
aes256
It's a weird fall from grace for violentacrez.

Redditors, in general, loved what he did. His subreddits were hugely popular;
/r/jailbait was once voted subreddit of the year by the community, and he
himself was once moderator of the year.

Now he has been unmasked he is facing the wrath of the wider population, which
doesn't 'get' Internet humor, the tongue-in-cheek nature of trolling, will
never admit to finding teenagers attractive, etc. Meanwhile, in distancing
themselves from him, the Reddit staff have thrown him under the bus.

You can see why it's tricky for him. Part of me thinks he doesn't really have
anything to apologize for.

~~~
naner
The demographic of Reddit that enjoyed what he did (or at least thought is was
funny or exercising "free speech") has been consistenly getting smaller and
less influential as Reddit has gained more mainstream popularity.

Reddit's employees never really loved the guy (AFAICT) but they tolerated him
because he moderated and kept illegal content out of his subreddits and they
sure as hell didn't want to touch any of that stuff.

Violentacrez turned on Reddit as soon as he was outed, looking for any
scapegoat to take some of the pressure off of himself. All things considered,
I'm not suprised that Reddit is not backing him up.

~~~
aes256
I don't think violentacrez is using Reddit as a scapegoat. I think he's
genuinely and understandably surprised by the outrage. It's that transition
from being hailed as an Internet hero to being derided as a vile monster that
has just left him bewildered.

From what I understand he was instrumental in driving traffic to the site in
the early days, and contributed a great deal to not only moderating his own
subreddits (including many of the most popular subreddits) but training other
moderators.

An awful lot of people held violentacrez in high regard despite his
controversial antics, but now this has all blown up in the media, violentacrez
himself is being used as a scapegoat.

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taytus
I'm not blaming Reddit for what this guy posted, but the truth is that Reddit
encouraged this kind of posts (they gave him an award!). Let's see how this
affect reddit in the future.

~~~
swordswinger12
The awards were based on community voting, Reddit had no control over who won.

~~~
themstheones
But Reddit is more about the community than the organization that runs it.

------
heed
Why would this man agree to interviewed? Does he like the attention? Does he
actually regret his actions? Does he like when others think of him in disgust?
His intentions here are suspect to me. Possibly one more troll?

~~~
aes256
It's good PR for him, a chance to humanize himself, to explain his actions,
and to appear somewhat remorseful.

He's not some vile monster, he's just a regular family man who enjoyed a bit
of Internet trolling in his spare time. He didn't do anything illegal, and
throughout his time on Reddit he was being cheered on by a broadly supportive
community.

------
freeslave
this whole thing has really turned me off reddit. i blocked it in my
/etc/hosts and my productivity has gone way up. also, makes me appreciate the
efforts of HN to keep things civil and intelligent - even if it means a lot of
my posts and comments go nowhere.

~~~
jimmybrite
Doxxing him and ruining his life was okay then? Even though he didn't post or
created those creepy subreddits which you have the liberty NOT to go to?

~~~
freeslave
he ruined his own life.

~~~
tbirdz
blame the victim mentality.

~~~
ajays
Why is he a victim? He chose to make his identity known to people! He attended
Reddit meetups. People knew him.

Was he not aware that he was trolling and doing nasty stuff? If he was
unaware, then I can understand him feeling like a victim; but he was fully
aware that his actions were considered abhorrent by many people, and still
persisted. So, naturally, people want to know who this person is, what makes
him tick, etc.

~~~
stfu
That was in my opinion exactly his mistake. He got to comfortable.

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nicholas_tuzzio
I really wish people would stop posting about this most recent bout of reddit
drama on HN. Are people not noticing that every article so far has been
deleted?

~~~
meritt
Huh. I didn't view this as a Reddit vs. HN elitism post. I viewed it as a
solid example of the inherent problems with balancing anonymity, legality of
content and freedom of speech on a user-generated website.

~~~
nicholas_tuzzio
I'm a really big fan of reddit in some ways and I have been following this
drama very closely. I just don't think it's appropriate for HN.

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koeselitz
And he instantly regrets it:

"CNN was a huge mistake, which I will not repeat."
[http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/11pka1/violentacrez_on...](http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/11pka1/violentacrez_on_cnn/c6onip4)

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wilco0925
"He has a gift for pushing buddons"

