Skip to main content

Reddit CEO in whole heap of trouble with users of popular Trump subreddit

Reddit CEO issues another apology for altered comments; new guidelines added

Despite multiple apologies, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is continuing to incur the wrath of the contributors to a popular Donald Trump subreddit after admitting to modifying a number of obscenity-laden posts directed at him.

The apologies follow a series of events that were kicked off by a fake news story regarding a pizza place, known as Comet Ping Pong, in Washington, D.C. The articles — which later gained momentum on blogs and social media — essentially recycled a conspiracy theory started by 4Chan users that claimed the restaurant was the site of a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager John D. Podesta. Soon, a subreddit entitled “r/Pizzagate” emerged. Its mission: to prove the theory correct.

Recommended Videos

Taking notice of the conversations on the new forum, Reddit quickly shut it down. Users searching for the subreddit were confronted with a message stating: This community is banned.” Reddit added: We don’t want witch hunts on our site.”

When users on the popular “r/The_Donald” subreddit caught wind of the removal of r/Pizzagate, they weren’t happy. Some began bombarding the forum with abusive messages specifically targeting Huffman and using his Reddit username, which meant he was alerted every time a post mentioning him was shared on the site.

The CEO apparently decided he wasn’t going to take matters lying down. On Nov. 24, a moderator for “r/The Donald” alerted users that their posts had been changed. All the abusive posts directed at Huffman had allegedly been modified to include the names of the moderators of the Trump forum, bouncing the expletives back to them.

The moderator turned out to be correct. Huffman replied within the same thread, admitting that he had, in fact, changed the vitriolic messages. Expressing regret for his behavior, Huffman stated the following in his comment: “As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly. 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.”

It seems Huffman’s apparent attempt at retribution has backfired. A number of r/The_Donald users showed little sympathy for his actions in their replies. Others raised questions over the credibility of Reddit, worrying the censorship and alterations could be more widespread.

“This, unfortunately, calls into question the validity of any post made on the entirety of Reddit, and raises sincere concerns, beyond The_Donald,” wrote one user.

“Add in the fact that now, no matter what the admins, owner, or anyone shows or says, it all [could’ve] been manipulated and we [therefore] can trust nothing from anyone at Reddit,” claimed another user.

Huffman said Wednesday that the site will take action against hundreds of its “most toxic users,” and will make changes to prevent some posts from the r/The_Donald subreddit from appearing on one of the site’s main hubs, meaning it is no longer shut down, though certain posts are disallowed.

On Thursday, a little more than a  week after the incident first came to light, Huffman attempted to apologize yet again, this time in a more extensive Reddit post. “While many users across the site found what I did funny or appreciated that I was standing up to the bullies (I received plenty of support from users of r/the_donald), many others did not,” he wrote. “I understand what I did has greater implications than my relationship with one community, and it is fair to raise the question of whether this erodes trust in Reddit. I hope our transparency around this event is an indication that we take matters of trust seriously.”

Huffman also promised to cut back on his own Reddit activity in the future, and noted that the online forum would be introducing more stringent moderation rules to ensure users “show enough respect to others.” Moreover, Reddit has now debuted r/all filtering to help its community more carefully parse through the content it does (and doesn’t) want to see.

Huffman isn’t the first Reddit chief to draw the ire of the site’s community. Last year, former CEO Ellen Pao was forced to resign after a petition calling for her removal received more than 200,000 signatures. Pao had overseen the shutdown of several subreddits accused of indulging in hateful “behavior.” Huffman, who replaced Pao, is one of the co-founders of the site and served as its original CEO.

Article originally published on 11-23-2016. Updated on 12-1-2016 by Lulu Chang: Added additional apology note from Huffman, as well as new Reddit policing guidelines.

Saqib Shah
Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…
Bluesky finally adds a feature many had been waiting for
A blue sky with clouds.

Bluesky has been making a lot of progress in recent months by simplifying the process to sign up while at the same time rolling out a steady stream of new features.

As part of those continuing efforts, the social media app has just announced that users can now send direct messages (DMs).

Read more
Reddit just achieved something for the first time in its 20-year history
The Reddit logo.

Reddit’s on a roll. The social media platform has just turned a profit for the first time in its 20-year history, and now boasts a record 97.2 million daily active users, marking a year-over-year increase of 47%. A few times during the quarter, the figure topped 100 million, which Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman said in a letter to shareholders had been a “long-standing milestone” for the site.

The company, which went public in March, announced the news in its third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday.

Read more
Worried about the TikTok ban? This is how it might look on your phone
TikTok splash screen on an Android phone.

The US Supreme Court has decided to uphold a law that would see TikTok banned in the country on January 19. Now, the platform has issued an official statement, confirming that it will indeed shut down unless it gets some emergency relief from the outgoing president.

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” said the company soon after the court’s verdict.
So, what does going dark mean?
So, far, there is no official statement on what exactly TikTok means by “going dark.” There is a lot of speculation out there on how exactly the app or website will look once TikTok shutters in the US.

Read more