Reddit’s CEO Edited User Comments Directed Towards Him ⇥ newstatesman.com

Bryan Menegus, Gizmodo:

During its tumultuous year on the site, Reddit’s Donald Trump community (r/the_donald) has been a constant source of strife for users and moderators alike. Huffman was a constant target for abuse for the_donald members, who hurled insults at him at every turn (“fuck u/spez” or “u/spez is a cuck” were the most common—spez being his on-site pseudonym) Finally, he snapped, and decided to edit the posts of users mocking him without their knowledge or consent.

The_donald caught the changes and logged them in a thread, wherein Huffman admitted to the act, noting that he acted alone and without the consent of the employees he entrusted to handle this exact sort of abuse.

Amelia Tait of the New Statesman:

Normally when a comment is edited on Reddit – by a user or a moderator – a small asterisk will appear after the time stamp to indicate that it has been changed. In this instance, no such asterisk appeared, meaning Huffman ostensibly has the ability to edit comments without a trace. This is crucial because two months ago, a Redditor was taken to court for comments he left on the site. Huffman’s editing powers could clearly be abused to cause trouble for individuals.

Beyond this, however, Huffman chose the wrong Reddit community to anger. Those on r/the_donald are already deeply convinced by conspiracies, and, in a way, Huffman has now validated their claims. It is not yet clear how they will retaliate or whether Donald Trump, who did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the subreddit earlier this year, will comment.

The users of /r/The_Donald already thought Reddit was suppressing their views whenever one of their posts left the /r/all cesspool. Can you imagine how much this is feeding their paranoia?