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The CEO of Reddit confessed to modifying posts from Trump supporters

67 points by vnchr 10y ago

vnchr 10y ago
Original article by Business Insider syndicated through Yahoo: http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-modifies-donald-trump-the-donald-2016-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-modi...
greenyoda 10y ago
Extensive discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031
synicalx 10y ago
So as well as editing text, now that reddit are doing their own image hosting, what's to stop them replacing/editing/manipulating images as well?
- vnchr 10y ago
  Article 11 of Reddit's user agreement states, "You are solely responsible for the information associated with Your Account and anything that happens related to Your Account." This sole responsibility is predicated upon user content not being tampered with, except for removal for moderation or administrative purposes. This act is unprecedented and not accounted for in their own legal agreements with users. User trust aside, does this impact their ability to enforce their user agreements?
  - synicalx 10y ago
    That's a good point. What's to stop a u/spez with rustled jimmies finding someone he doesn't like, then editing their comment in such a way that it suddenly becomes libellous? How could the commenter possibly prove that they didn't write that comment?
generic_user 10y ago
> Angry "The _Donald" members accused Reddit leadership of modifying or otherwise censoring their posts — which turned out to be correct, when Huffman posted the following comment, confessing that it was him personally who was performing the changes. I knew this sort of thing was going to happen and stopped using most social media. These new platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook etc are devolving into the same sort of ban happy in group out group tribalism you get on irc channels Where some clique has all the oper accounts and anyone who has even the slightest disagreement is banned. I would rather use a much smaller bbs or forum that does not censor rather then a huge social media platform where anything you say could get you booted if it rubs the censors the wrong way.
- BipolarElsa 10y ago
  I got banned from /r/pizza for critiquing pizzas too harshly. Seriously? The walled-garden, clique, circlejerking is no fun at all.
- geezerjay 10y ago
  > I knew this sort of thing was going to happen and stopped using most social media. As hacker news is the same sort of "social media" as reddit, you certainly haven't stopped using it at all.
  - generic_user 10y ago
    most, not all. hn is a small forum compared to those others.
gamechangr 10y ago
Honestly - He should be fired for this. If Reddit was a real company, he would have been let go already. Being CEO requires that you keep ahold of your emotions and not abuse your power. This totally calls into question the credibility of the whole site.
- BipolarElsa 10y ago
  I'm waiting for the big "I'm sorry" blog post followed by some bullshit "steps" he's going to take to "rectify" the "matter". FWIW, it was a prank gone wrong.
jpgvm 10y ago
I don't get why this is such a massive deal. Kids were trolling, he trolled back. Reddit is a fun site, what do you really expect? Personally I think it's funny.
- cargo8 10y ago
  Because it undermines the integrity of literally every post on the site. If the admins have the ability to modify posts and comments without any notice or indication, this opens the door to... - Creating false content via discrete edits that violate ToS, allowing for false flag to ban a user/thread/subreddit - Any comment or post used as evidence (ahem, e.g. Hillary Clinton's IT guy, mention of drugs or crimes, literally anything like that) now is called into question. Wouldn't surprise me if he now has to testify that posts were not altered if it is accepted as evidence, etc. - Literally anything else where a verified identity post and people assume it is what they (the person) said. AMAs are basically the thing that took Reddit mainstream, so that is kind of a big deal.
  - mejari 10y ago
    >Because it undermines the integrity of literally every post on the site. Maybe the posts on the site shouldn't be afforded the assumption of integrity? Trump's supporters have already taken over the front page with a constant barrage of false "news" stories and a fanatical devotion to defend them. There's no reason you shouldn't apply the classic 4-chan disclaimer to reddit as well: >The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.
- executesorder66 10y ago
  How would you feel if all of your comments on hacker news were edited to say the opposite of what you mean, or were phrased in such a way as to discredit everything you are trying to say? And not just on hacker news. What if the same thing happened on twitter or facebook?
  - jpgvm 10y ago
canada_dry 10y ago
It was pretty obvious throughout the campaign that mods were constantly battling a tsunami of political spam from all sides. I suspect you don't have to dig very deep to find out that quite a bit of squelching was being done on several subreddits. One needs to look no further than the spam that has made youtube comments a no-mans land of crass stupidity to see why a fairly broad brush of modding is req'd to keep some reasonable level of maturity.
iso-8859-1 10y ago
this post is more popular https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031

67 points by vnchr 10y ago

vnchr 10y ago

Original article by Business Insider syndicated through Yahoo: http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-modifies-donald-trump-the-donald-2016-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-modi...

greenyoda 10y ago

Extensive discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031

synicalx 10y ago

So as well as editing text, now that reddit are doing their own image hosting, what's to stop them replacing/editing/manipulating images as well?

vnchr 10y ago
Article 11 of Reddit's user agreement states, "You are solely responsible for the information associated with Your Account and anything that happens related to Your Account." This sole responsibility is predicated upon user content not being tampered with, except for removal for moderation or administrative purposes. This act is unprecedented and not accounted for in their own legal agreements with users. User trust aside, does this impact their ability to enforce their user agreements?
- synicalx 10y ago
  That's a good point. What's to stop a u/spez with rustled jimmies finding someone he doesn't like, then editing their comment in such a way that it suddenly becomes libellous? How could the commenter possibly prove that they didn't write that comment?

generic_user 10y ago

> Angry "The _Donald" members accused Reddit leadership of modifying or otherwise censoring their posts — which turned out to be correct, when Huffman posted the following comment, confessing that it was him personally who was performing the changes. I knew this sort of thing was going to happen and stopped using most social media. These new platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook etc are devolving into the same sort of ban happy in group out group tribalism you get on irc channels Where some clique has all the oper accounts and anyone who has even the slightest disagreement is banned. I would rather use a much smaller bbs or forum that does not censor rather then a huge social media platform where anything you say could get you booted if it rubs the censors the wrong way.

BipolarElsa 10y ago
I got banned from /r/pizza for critiquing pizzas too harshly. Seriously? The walled-garden, clique, circlejerking is no fun at all.
geezerjay 10y ago
> I knew this sort of thing was going to happen and stopped using most social media. As hacker news is the same sort of "social media" as reddit, you certainly haven't stopped using it at all.
- generic_user 10y ago
  most, not all. hn is a small forum compared to those others.

gamechangr 10y ago

Honestly - He should be fired for this. If Reddit was a real company, he would have been let go already. Being CEO requires that you keep ahold of your emotions and not abuse your power. This totally calls into question the credibility of the whole site.

BipolarElsa 10y ago
I'm waiting for the big "I'm sorry" blog post followed by some bullshit "steps" he's going to take to "rectify" the "matter". FWIW, it was a prank gone wrong.

jpgvm 10y ago

I don't get why this is such a massive deal. Kids were trolling, he trolled back. Reddit is a fun site, what do you really expect? Personally I think it's funny.

cargo8 10y ago
Because it undermines the integrity of literally every post on the site. If the admins have the ability to modify posts and comments without any notice or indication, this opens the door to... - Creating false content via discrete edits that violate ToS, allowing for false flag to ban a user/thread/subreddit - Any comment or post used as evidence (ahem, e.g. Hillary Clinton's IT guy, mention of drugs or crimes, literally anything like that) now is called into question. Wouldn't surprise me if he now has to testify that posts were not altered if it is accepted as evidence, etc. - Literally anything else where a verified identity post and people assume it is what they (the person) said. AMAs are basically the thing that took Reddit mainstream, so that is kind of a big deal.
- mejari 10y ago
  >Because it undermines the integrity of literally every post on the site. Maybe the posts on the site shouldn't be afforded the assumption of integrity? Trump's supporters have already taken over the front page with a constant barrage of false "news" stories and a fanatical devotion to defend them. There's no reason you shouldn't apply the classic 4-chan disclaimer to reddit as well: >The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.
executesorder66 10y ago
How would you feel if all of your comments on hacker news were edited to say the opposite of what you mean, or were phrased in such a way as to discredit everything you are trying to say? And not just on hacker news. What if the same thing happened on twitter or facebook?
- jpgvm 10y ago

canada_dry 10y ago

It was pretty obvious throughout the campaign that mods were constantly battling a tsunami of political spam from all sides. I suspect you don't have to dig very deep to find out that quite a bit of squelching was being done on several subreddits. One needs to look no further than the spam that has made youtube comments a no-mans land of crass stupidity to see why a fairly broad brush of modding is req'd to keep some reasonable level of maturity.

iso-8859-1 10y ago

this post is more popular https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027031