Reddit CEO Admits to Editing User Comments

[Steven Bogos]

Reddit CEO Admits to Editing User Comments

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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has admitted to editing comments that were critical of him.

Reddit is an online forum like any other, and its moderators have the freedom to ban or delete posts as they please. But Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has taken things a bit further, using his root access of the site to actually alter posts that are critical of him.

Huffman had been the target of a series of attacks from members of pro-Donald Trump subreddit r/The_Donald after Reddit banned a Pizzagate subreddit devoted to a conspiracy theory that linked Hillary Clinton, a Washington D.C. pizza restaurant and a pedophile ring.

He admitted to spending several hours changing comments of "fuck Spez" (Spez is his reddit username) to direct them at moderators of r/The_Donald.

"I messed with the "fuck u/spez" comments, replacing "spez" with r/the_donald mods for about an hour. It's been a long week here trying to unwind the r/pizzagate stuff," he said in a post [https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5ekdy9/the_admins_are_suffering_from_low_energy_have/dad5sf1/]. "As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly."

Did Huffman go to far by editing users comments? I think deleting/banning inappropriate stuff is fine, but actually editing comments and leaving no trace of it is pretty shady.

Source: Reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5ekdy9/the_admins_are_suffering_from_low_energy_have/dad5sf1/]

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[Lur-King]

Back when GamerGate just started being a thing, I remember the day that all the gaming outlets reported negatively on their communities. Within the week after, The Escapist had purged those people from their staff, had formally apologized, and promised to rectify/report unbias content. I'm really glad The Escapist did the right thing, because when you look at Reddit, the New York Times, all these "respected" outlets, you see that they really aren't respectable. They aren't upstanding cornerstones of journalism or community standard. They're agenda pushing, corrupted, and colluding piles of garbage.

Escapist Staff, thanks for not taking the easy road and being like Twitter or Facebook's CEOs and censoring content. Thanks for being genuinely awesome to the community.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Huffman had been the target of a series of attacks

Can we please reserve the use of the word "attack" for actual physical violence, as opposed to internet name-calling, especially when it involves a living human being?

at?tack
criticize or oppose fiercely and publicly.

Attack has been used in this sense long before "internet name-calling". Politicians would "attack" a policy they opposed ect

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Escapist Staff, thanks for not taking the easy road and being like Twitter or Facebook's CEOs and censoring content. Thanks for being genuinely awesome to the community.

Well, I recall at least one ranty 'editorial' from Josh Vander-wotsit that was hostile and rather pathetically spiteful and divisive towards some not-so-pro-gamergate communities, so the Escapist isn't exactly an ideal model for how to deal with 'controversies' and inter-community relations.

I'd say the 'purges' - your terminology - turned this place into a lesser site, but that's a whole different topic.

As for that topic: I think I've spent about 20mins on reddit in total (always pertaining to googled questions about games, it seems), so I've no idea what goes on there or why. The forum format's an ugly mess, so that alone's always been off-putting.

 

[PsychicTaco115]

Reddit is a mess

Reddit is a waste

Reddit is a big, fat mistake

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

"As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly."

... And so your solution is to re-direct that onto other people?

Stop me if I'm on the wrong track here, guys, but isn't that it's own level of shitty behaviour?

 

[InsanityRequiem]

Escapist Staff, thanks for not taking the easy road and being like Twitter or Facebook's CEOs and censoring content. Thanks for being genuinely awesome to the community.

Well, I recall at least one ranty 'editorial' from Josh Vander-wotsit that was hostile and rather pathetically spiteful and divisive towards some not-so-pro-gamergate communities, so the Escapist isn't exactly an ideal model for how to deal with 'controversies' and inter-community relations.

I'd say the 'purges' - your terminology - turned this place into a lesser site, but that's a whole different topic.

As for that topic: I think I've spent about 20mins on reddit in total (always pertaining to googled questions about games, it seems), so I've no idea what goes on there or why. The forum format's an ugly mess, so that alone's always been off-putting.

To fill you in, there is a rather extremely volatile subreddit on Reddit called The_Donald. It?s an extremely, extremely pro-Trump place where a lot of what is posted and upvoted are mock stories, memes, and shitposts which get highly voted and put up onto Reddit?s /r/all page. This incident involved the Reddit Admins shutting down a subreddit called pizzagate (harassment, doxxing, stalking a few pizza locations over ?child rape/molestation/abuse? accusations based off leaked Podesta emails. Podesta being a very pro-Clinton person). This shut down led to members of The_Donald highly upvote a thread saying ?fuck /u/spez? and that he?s a pedophile for shutting down pizzagate. /u/spez is the CEO of Reddit, and due to ?stress? as he says, he was very petty and vindictive, deciding to abuse his admin privileges to change all the ?fuck spez? posts so they were saying ?fuck the mods?. He later came out and apologized and things went to shit immediately.

"As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly."

... And so your solution is to re-direct that onto other people?

Stop me if I'm on the wrong track here, guys, but isn't that it's own level of shitty behaviour?

Oh definitely it quite shitty behavior. I know admins have special privileges, such as altering comments for rule violations and such, but I have not seen any such altering done secretly with no notice. It was always ?Admin edit? or ?Mod edit?. Some form of note that states an admin/mod did such an action and the reason for said action.

If anything, spez should have made an admin post in The_Donald dictating that what they?re doing is disgustingly criminal behavior (An entire subreddit calling the CEO, and admins, of Reddit pedophiles/child molesters is clearly libel with intent to damage the people and the site) and that if they want The_Donald to remain open, they better cut the shit out now. A clear statement of what they?re doing is wrong and the only warning. Not petty, fascist-esque behavior.

And before anyone tries to correct me on what fascist means, Oxford Dictionary: an authoritarian and right-wing system of government and social organization. Reddit is a social organization and the CEO went to authoritarian measures to alter, rewrite, and hide statements that he did not like secretly. The difference between what spez did, and what sites like the Escapist does, is that the Escapist publicly states the reasons for a change in someone?s comment.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...you know, that's actually kinda funny. Shitty behaviour, sure, but still funny. Probably could've just mass-banned them all/locked the whole subreddit given it's... well, his fucking site, but the petty option is still just as funny.

Back when GamerGate just started being a thing, I remember the day that all the gaming outlets reported negatively on their communities. Within the week after, The Escapist had purged those people from their staff, had formally apologized, and promised to rectify/report unbias content. I'm really glad The Escapist did the right thing, because when you look at Reddit, the New York Times, all these "respected" outlets, you see that they really aren't respectable. They aren't upstanding cornerstones of journalism or community standard. They're agenda pushing, corrupted, and colluding piles of garbage.

Escapist Staff, thanks for not taking the easy road and being like Twitter or Facebook's CEOs and censoring content. Thanks for being genuinely awesome to the community.

Two things: The Escapist didn't 'purge' anyone (the only person they actively fired I believe was Bob Chipman, for shit unrelated to any 'reporting' given he isn't even a journalist), with all the staff and content creators that left either being let go due to financial problems (not an uncommon issue for the Escapist, given it's current state) or creative differences/wanting to go independent. Even the mod let go at the time was for a completely separate reason, so... don't really know where you're getting this 'purge' from.

Second thing - Reddit isn't an outlet. It doesn't report on anything, it's basically a mass-forum. Nor has it really been a 'respected' website in a long time, given the propensity for sub-reddits to form based solely on harassment or illegal activities with little-to-no response from moderators or officials. It's... well, it's a dump. A fun dump to stick your head into every now and then if you've found one of the not-god-awful sub-reddits, but a dump none-the-less.

 

[HomuraDidNothinWrong]

The big issue with the dummy editing comments is it strips reddit of its fair harbor protections. Now if someone has a lawsuit against them based on comments they made, reddit as a company can be liable instead of the person making the comments. Its a MASSIVE blunder from a legal perspective, and I expect Advance Publications is going to be looking for a new CEO in the coming weeks.

 

[MerlinCross]

Second thing - Reddit isn't an outlet. It doesn't report on anything, it's basically a mass-forum. Nor has it really been a 'respected' website in a long time, given the propensity for sub-reddits to form based solely on harassment or illegal activities with little-to-no response from moderators or officials. It's... well, it's a dump. A fun dump to stick your head into every now and then if you've found one of the not-god-awful sub-reddits, but a dump none-the-less.

Respected enough that actual outlets tend to use it as references or examples. And I'm not even talking about just game news; news in general tends to pluck info from Reddit if Twitter isn't good enough. That's more on those outlets than Reddit though, I can agree to taht.

 

[Callate]

I'm not sure it speaks well of me that my first reaction is amusement.

The CEO of Reddit has been editing comments critical of him.

The CEO.

I mean, at the least, wouldn't you expect him to have better things to do with his time? Maybe a subordinate to engage in dirty tricks on his behalf...?

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Second thing - Reddit isn't an outlet. It doesn't report on anything, it's basically a mass-forum. Nor has it really been a 'respected' website in a long time, given the propensity for sub-reddits to form based solely on harassment or illegal activities with little-to-no response from moderators or officials. It's... well, it's a dump. A fun dump to stick your head into every now and then if you've found one of the not-god-awful sub-reddits, but a dump none-the-less.

Respected enough that actual outlets tend to use it as references or examples. And I'm not even talking about just game news; news in general tends to pluck info from Reddit if Twitter isn't good enough. That's more on those outlets than Reddit though, I can agree to taht.

Yeah, that's kinda like sourcing from Wikipedia for an academic essay - sure, there's a chance it's actually correct, but don't be surprised if nobody takes you seriously for doing so.

That said, given the sheer size and variety of Reddit, it is entirely possible to report on things from there that are factual; i.e. AMAs, 'officially supported' reddits by developers/publishers/whatever, sub-reddits that aren't terrible, etc. so it really depends more on the part of reddit that the article is drawing from. Sturgeons Law does mean that there's always that 10% that's actually not fucking atrocious, even if additional research is required to make sure it's true.

 

[Zulnam]

Reddit, brought to you by the NSA Training Program.

 

[Trunkage]

at?tack
criticize or oppose fiercely and publicly.

Attack has been used in this sense long before "internet name-calling". Politicians would "attack" a policy they opposed ect

Yes it has. I just wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea, as if spez was actually fearing for his health or safety.

No such ambiguousness exists when the thing being attacked is a policy.

For example: "I'm going to attack you!" vs. "I'm going to fiercely criticize you on the internet!"

I can understand you wanting to not call it "attacking" but most of the comments are not in the ballpark of criticism. They are just insults, usually with no data or point, meant to degrade someone. It may not be attacking but it is certainly not criticism

 

[Naldan]

Reddit's heads make such an incompetent impression to me. But that seems to be the way to go nowadays. All we want and need imo are honest professionals that commit to their customers.

 

[RaikuFA]

I'm not sure it speaks well of me that my first reaction is amusement.

The CEO of Reddit has been editing comments critical of him.

The CEO.

I mean, at the least, wouldn't you expect him to have better things to do with his time? Maybe a subordinate to engage in dirty tricks on his behalf...?

He probably has a Kanye West level ego and looks for his name every day on the site. Any negative comments he comes across he edits.