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Did anybody seriously think that reddit admins didn't have the power to do this all along? They can go edit the database directly if they want.
by eridius 10y ago
Did anybody seriously think that reddit admins didn't have the power to do this all along? They can go edit the database directly if they want.
- rfrank 10y agoPotential vs. proof. That is a large distinction.
- marcoperaza 10y agoPeople have the power to do a lot of things. You have the power to quite easily lie, cheat, and steal in this world. When you run a website, like when you run a business, you have to convince your customers/users to trust you not to do those things.
- cargo8 10y agoTechnically, sure. But, usually a company of this size/scale puts in place restrictions so that accessing privileged abilities like this is extremely difficult and requires authorizations / clearances / permissions from users, etc. Generally big / public tech company employees are not even allowed to LOOK at PII or the data of a specific user name etc. You run all tests on staging / fake populated DBs only, etc.
- eridius 10y agoReddit's not that large, and the admin in question is the CEO.
- adamrezich 10y agoReddit is one of the largest and most influential community websites on the Internet (#25-29ish).
- grzm 10y agoOne of the largest, sure. How are you measuring "most influential"?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- stickfigure 10y agoSo's 4chan...
- eridius 10y agoLarge in terms of company size, not in terms of internet reach.
- cargo8 10y agoCEOs don't get to break the rules just because. These kinds of restrictions exist to protect consumers (and their data) and the business legally from liability, etc.
- Senji 10y agoYes, yes they do.
- mzw_mzw 10y agoIt's not that people didn't know the admins have the power; it's that people didn't believe they'd use the power. Your local police or military could just barge into your house and kill you at any time. They have the power to do that. Society functions to the extent that you don't believe they will do that. If you found out one day that your local police chief had, under cover of law, busted into someone's house and waved a gun at them over a petty personal dispute, though, your faith would be a little shaken.