Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has expressed regret for abusing his power by editing comments made about him on the site by Donald Trump supporters, but that's not preventing subreddit users and moderators from calling for his resignation.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Huffman, who co-founded Reddit with Alexis Ohanian in 2005, admitted that changing abusive posts about him to mention the moderators of Reddit's biggest pro-Trump subreddit, r/the_donald, wasn't exactly a good idea.
“I abused my power to give the bullies a hard time,” he said, adding that the name-swapping was just a joke, a matter of "trolling the trolls" for a bit.
His intention, he said, was to change mentions of his username, 'spez', to the moderators of r/the_donald for just a few hours and then shift it back to normal, which violates Reddit's employee policies.
“If The_Donald had done this to another Reddit employee, I would have banned them,” he said in reference to the torrent of insults he's been getting.
Leaked conversations
One Reddit moderator, UnimatrixZeroOne, has released screengrabs of Slack conversations between Reddit moderators, admins and Huffman about the modified posts.
He did so out of of "anger" at /u/spez for editing someone else's comment.
"If he did this just because he thought it was funny, then what stops him from doing it for a more 'important' reason? What he did completely destroys the credibility of reddit," UnimatrixZeroOne said.
"I believe I speak for all when I say that /u/spez no longer represents reddit and its interests, especially not its community. /u/spez, I am asking you to do right by the website/company you helped co-found, do right by the investors, and do right by the community. Resign as CEO of Reddit," he concluded.
In the leaked conversations, some Reddit moderators expressed frustration with r/the_donald and asked Huffman to ban it for violating the site's guidelines.
One user said he received personal threats from members of the group during the presidential campaign, with messages referencing “Car vandalism, pipe bomb threat (specific). Rallying calls to ruin my personal life.”
Huffman seems cautious in taking a more aggressive approach against The_Donald.
“You make it seem like I don’t care about figuring out t_d,” he said, claiming that an outright ban "would create a mess".
#Pizzagate
Reddit was already at war with The_Donald after it shut down a subreddit dedicated to #pizzagate.
#Pizzagate refers to a fake news story that falsely claimed Hillary Clinton, aided by campaign chairman John Podesta, kidnapped, molested and trafficked children in the backrooms of a pizza restaurant called Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C.
Dozens of fabricated articles on #pizzagate and the child trafficking ring appeared on Facebook and conspiracy theory websites such as The New Nationalist and The Vigilant Citizen.
The New York Times debunked the story after the owner of Comet Ping Pong, James Alefantis, and his employees started getting abusive messages and death threats on their social media accounts.
The rumors also spread on Reddit, which eventually led management to intervene by closing the dedicated subreddit, citing problems with users posting an individual's private information, which violates the platform's terms and conditions.
Topics Social Media Donald Trump Reddit
