Steve Huffman, CEO of notorious social media website Reddit, admitted that he had edited user comments from Donald Trump supporters that were critical of him. Huffman changed references to his own username anonymously and substituted them with moderators of the subreddit, r/the_donald.
Huffman, who goes by "spez" on Reddit, admitted to his lapses after being called by users of the r/the_donald. According to the CEO, the posts were abusive to him and he only altered them as a joke, and not to censor them.
"I messed with the "f*** u/spez" comments, replacing "spez" with r/the_donald mods for about an hour," Huffman admitted on a Reddit thread. The edited posts have now been restored to their original form.
Reddit & The "Pizzagate" Conspiracy
Huffman's conflict with r/the_donald subscribers emerged after Reddit banned a community called r/Pizzagate earlier this week. r/Pizzagate is made up of people who believe that Hillary Clinton and her associates are behind a pedophile ring that operates in a pizza shop in Washington, D.C.
Reddit's Pizzagate conspiracy centers on the stolen emails that were made public by WikiLeaks. According to the theory, talk of pizza is a reference to pedophilia, initiated by Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta, along with other associates. No solid evidence has been provided out of the accusations against Clinton and her team.
Reddit CEO Apologizes
"As the CEO, I shouldn't play such games, and it's all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won't do this again," Huffman wrote on the r/the_donald. The CEO didn't exactly direct his statement towards those users whose comments he altered, but he did admit he had overstepped his bounds, reports The Verge.
Reddit's CEOs have been a target of criticisms in the past, which goes to show that public figures are not exactly exempted from online trolling. Huffman may have had a bit of fun trolling the r/the_donald, but the incident has the potential to become another Ellen Pao-catastrophe, which the current CEO clearly doesn't want to pattern.
