Reddit CEO Steve Huffman admitted to editing user comments that berated him, redirecting those insults toward moderators of Reddit’s Donald Trump fan community.
Reddit user /u/OhSnapYouGotServedA, who is a moderator of Reddit’s pro-Trump community /r/The_Donald, wrote in a post on the subreddit, “Remember our post from yesterday regarding the shutdown or /r/pizzagate? Well it appears some comments have…changed!”
He then linked to an archived page of the post in question where multiple mentions of Reddit CEO Steve Huffman can be seen with users referring to him by his Reddit username of /u/Spez. The thread the next day had been edited to remove all mention of Huffman, instead replacing the /u/Spez username with the usernames of /r/The_Donald moderators.
Many of the comments about Huffman were derogatory, accusing him of censoring content on Reddit. Huffman himself admitted to editing the comments.
“Yep. I messed with the ‘fuck u/spez‘ comments,” Huffman wrote. “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.”
One user responded, “This, unfortunately, calls into question the validity of any post made on the entirety of reddit, and raises sincere concerns, beyond The_Donald. (Fake)News outlets often cite reddit posts, which are now revealed to be entirely falsifiable by the admins, with no trace. This is a dark day for Reddit.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart Tech covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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