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Reddit has addressed the situation here, in a mealy mouthed sort of way: https://www.reddit.com/r/modsupport/comments/mbqgx2 https://www.reddit.com/r/modsupport

Reddit has addressed the situation here, in a mealy mouthed sort of way: https://www.reddit.com/r/modsupport/comments/mbqgx2 https://www.reddit.com/r/modsupport/comments/mbqgx2 However they seem to be denying the accusations that admins (possibly including the individual in question) were manually editing contents containing her name. This whole situation is incredibly bizarre to me. In the first place, why would reddit hire a 23 year old admin whose greatest accomplishment is being forced out of politics due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? Why did they taking such extreme steps to hide the admin's name, when they don't offer the same protections to mods or other users of the site? Does reddit have any audit trail or safeguards when admins edit comments? It would be interesting if they did a postmortem on the situation, but so far they seem reluctant to say that anything went wrong on their end.

unloco 6y ago
I pretty sure that response was as close to a post mortem as we are going to get.
brabel 6y ago
> due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? You mean, her own father? The article says her fiancee also had been accused of saying he feels attracted to children but they claim his account was hacked, which may be true as no one in their right mind would tweet something like that.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  I hate to be the guy that point this out, but no one should be Shamed for admitting they have a problem. Context matters whether they Were admitting attraction or endorsing the molestation of children
  - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
    I hope you don't get downvoted for this. If you care about childrens welfare, you should be 100% in support of pedophiles coming forward and seeking help.
    - rory 6y ago
      Right, but the context here is not the guy seeking help. It's him explaining why he thinks it's okay for his girlfriend (now wife) to work with vulnerable children while he actively produces content fantasizing about raping children.
      - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
        Absolutely. My comment was meant as a generalization.
      - buisi 6y ago
        I don't think it makes sense to view producing such content as so frightening. https://web.archive.org/web/20190602191056/https://cphpost.dk/news/national/report-cartoon-paedophilia-harmless.html https://web.archive.org/web/20190602191056/https://cphpost.d... > Cartoons and drawings depicting paedophilia do not encourage people to commit child sex offences in real life, a report by experts who treat sexual problems concludes. The report, carried out by Sexologisk Klinik, which is a part of Rigshospitalet, was ordered by the former justice minister, Lars Barfod (Konservative), after the Socialdemokraterne, then in opposition, demanded a ban on drawings and animations of children being sexually abused. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.h... > The findings support the theory that potential sexual offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex crimes against children. While the authors do not approve of the use of real children in the production or distribution of child pornography, they say that artificially produced materials might serve a purpose.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sodality2 6y ago
  And her partner.
- tommica 6y ago
  If the tweet was years ago, then I can easily imagine a kid tweeting something like that to be edgy/something else - I know I've said some stupid stuff as a kid
- PH01 6y ago
  Her partner posted content about being attracted to children as far back as 2015. A five year setup followed by a Twitter hack seems incredibly unlikely. Edit: The unique name used for her partners keybase account is associated with similar content posted in 2004. The evidence appears concrete that her partner is a self-confessed paedophile.
- colpabar 6y ago
  >no one in their right mind would tweet something like that. You must be blissfully unaware of the child-oriented fetishes that exist online. I know kink-shaming is a no-no, but I find it hard to believe that adults who participate in these activities don't have any desire to include real children. Just like I find it hard to believe that someone who uses an "islamic terrorist" target at a gun range doesn't have any desire to shoot a real one. EDIT: replace "islamic terrorist" with "gangster thug" (I don't like altering comments in this way so just pretend I did)
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Do you think it's wrong to target a terrorist?
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      it depends? when I was a kid, my tennis instructor used to prop up pictures of osama bin laden on hitting targets. a little odd to do with young children, but not a big deal I don't think. if "islamic terrorist" means a picture of someone wearing typical pashtun garb holding an ak, that's a bit less okay. it's kinda like people who are really into home defense. there's nothing wrong with people who train a lot to defend against a home invasion. but with some of them, you get the impression they actually hope it happens. not a great look.
      - philistine 6y ago
        It is a big deal that your hatred for a terrorist was used to improve your performance at a sport, when you were a kid. I despise Al-Qaida, but hating Bin Laden to such a level was exactly his goal. Proper warfare against Islamic terrorists means shielding children from senseless hate, not embracing it. Preparing children for a difficult world with tough problems and impossible solutions. You were taught that terrorism could be solved by throwing things at its nominal leader. During tennis practice!
      - jgwil2 6y ago
        Not gonna lie, that's kind of an insane thing for a tennis instructor of children to do.
- defen 6y ago
  > You mean, her own father? To be clear, the connection is not just that he is her father. He raped and tortured a 10 year old girl in his own house while living there with Aimee. Then after he had been charged but not yet convicted, she hired him as her campaign manager.
- tyho 6y ago
  Stop defending pedophile apologists before you know the full facts of the case. Her father raped and tortured (a car battery was involved) a ten year old. This happened over multiple days whilst the child was tied to the rafters in the attic of the family home. This is the same house Aimee Chancellor was living in at the time. But she claims she didn't know and she was not on trial. Regardless, during the trial photos of Aimee with the victim were discovered on Amiee's phone. After her father was arrested and charged with 22 counts of sexual violence, she forged documents in order to hire him as her election agent. This is a position where he would have had contact with children. She was kicked out the Green party when this came to light. She then joined another political party, and was kicked out of that after her fiance was found to have tweeted: "I fantasise about children having sex, sometimes with adults, sometimes with other children, sometimes kidnapped and forced into bad situations." They were both contacted by the media about this, she claimed he had been hacked, he claimed that these were only fantasies, and would never act on these urges... She later married him. Amiee Chancellor is a despicable human being who can only be viewed positively if she is compared to the people she chooses to surround herself with.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    I'm confused. Your comment talks about her father and her fiance. What did she do? "Amiee Chancellor is a despicable human being" is pretty heavy, but the only thing related to her in your comment is that "she forged documents in order to hire him as her election agent." Not cool, but is there more here?
    - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
      "photos on her phone" is pretty damning.
      - sillysaurusx 6y ago
        Oh wow, I completely missed that. Sorry! Regardless, during the trial photos of Aimee with the victim were discovered on Amiee's phone. Thanks for pointing that out. Yes of course, that's completely different. Does anyone know where to find more info about this? It's such a strange situation. EDIT: There are some details here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/coventry-captive-girl-attic-torture-den-david-challenor-coventry-a8502991.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/coventry-captive... though nothing about Aimee being in the photos. I'm curious how she wasn't implicated in that case. How weird...
- esja 6y ago
  The account wasn't hacked. Aimee lied about that, along with many other things, in order to protect a pedophile (again).
defen 6y ago
Sadly, my default guess here is that whoever approved the hire did so because they wanted to partake in whatever grooming or other illegal activities that the new admin could facilitate.
Sebb767 6y ago
> possibly including the individual in question Even assuming that Reddit learned nothing from the /u/spez-debacle and that admins can still edit comments, it would be a problem in its own right if she already had such far-reaching permissions when just getting started.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
trident5000 6y ago
The CEO himself admitted to going into The_Donald subreddit (before it was banned) and editing user comments. I don't think this guy is leading the charge to admin transparency. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comments_n_5839cf32e4b000af95ee5b68 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comment...
- pen2l 6y ago
  This gets brought up a lot. And it's a bit of a doozy to make sense of. First, consider the context: the CEO (spez) was an easy punching bag on the_donald subreddit, in fact it was a bit of a meme there to attack reddit's admins (and those in the know do know that the attacks were often crossing a line, like accusing them of being pedophiles and things of the nature). The change that spez made was a bit of a joke itself, it was turning an attack on its head. If the edit had been made in the early early days of Reddit, especially in the jokey context it was made in, I don't think anyone would have batted an eyelash. But in the last few years, right around the time these things happened, it became clear that Reddit is a big deal. I think what I'm trying to say is, whatever may be your feelings of Reddit and its stature, this particular act by spez was pretty insignifiant in the grand scheme of things. Indeed the subreddit that this happened in actually no longer even exists, the_donald and similar subreddits were banned to make Reddit a friendlier place such that it's now an easier decision for corporate America to put ads on there.
  - serial_dev 6y ago
    Just replace spez and reddit with Zuckerberg and Facebook and you'll immediately understand why it is bad. Just imagine Mark editing your posts. CEOs shouldn't be monkeying around without a transparent changelog with user content.
    - justbored123 6y ago
      Why not? Is their company and you are not paying them a damn thing. Why the entitlement if you are not paying for the service that you are enjoying? That's not how the world works. If you are not paying don't complain, just move to another site or pay for the service so you are under a different contract and relation and you are no longer the product and are the customer instead. You are not the customer of Facebook, Reddit or Google, the ads buyers are, and the customer is always right. If they don't like your post, it makes all the sense in the world to change it, censor it or kick you out because you are making them lose money and they are not a non-profit existing to serve you. They exist to make money for their share-holders like any other corporation.
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
I'm asking myself the same question. There many LGBT+ activists out there; hiring this particular person is just asking for trouble. And the current censorship situation simply makes no sense.
duxup 6y ago
Reddit administration seems pretty ad hoc, undisciplined, at times weirdly disconnected from the community, and uncoordinated as it could possibly be. Then again so are all its subreddits, and the volunteer mods are about as opaque and strange as the admins, with the added excuse that they're doing it for free. The fact that the ecosystem has survived seems more like happenstance.
- nonplussed 6y ago
  It'd be interesting to see demographics on moderators. My perception is that they must skew young because who else has time to do all that work for free? Volunteer moderation is one of those things that must baffle economists. Here you have people putting in a lot of work for free for a profit seeking enterprise.
  - duxup 6y ago
    Yeah I used to voluenteer moderate a very busy gaming forum and I quit when I got older.
  - sumtechguy 6y ago
    Some economists maybe? Perhaps, if you think the only thing to gain is money? Some people do silly things because of other reasons (fame, ego, obligation, greed, retribution, etc). See recent 'stonks' as a good example of people actually spending money for non monetary gain. It is these other factors which feed into many economic models unknowingly. When those variables move they can radically change a model and cause it to do funny things.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    > Volunteer moderation is one of those things that must baffle economists They do the same thing for the same reasons when it comes to peer review...
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    Which is why it attracts those for whom power is it's own reward.
akhilcacharya 6y ago
The obvious answer is they probably didn't, this is probably a pseudo QAnon/Pizzagate conspiracy theory where people were "censored" for the harassment of a random person.
- kart23 6y ago
  Reddit admins have confirmed she is an employee. And there are a bunch of reputable articles of her actions and controversy from years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/mbqgx2/a_clarification_on_actioning_and_employee_names/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/mbqgx2/a_clarif...
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Funny that you so casually dismissing something with many facts around it makes you more like any Q related stuff.
esja 6y ago
I agree, but a minor nitpick: Aimee was forced out not just for being connected to pedophiles, but also for lying about and/or endorsing them (among other issues). A massive failure of safeguarding from the Greens and Lib Dems, and now from Reddit. It's astonishing to me that a person like this can become an admin on a website used by millions of teenagers. We already know that admins can access private messages and other personal information.
- mam2 6y ago
  I am 100% convinced that the rate of pedophile is higher in: - positions of power (we have had a few in france who were judges / party representatives etC...) - any job close to children, which includes in particular schools, but also.. - church Why ? Because if you woke up tommorow as a pedophile, without any morals, and wanted to maximise the "chances" to satisfy your sexual attraction, where would you go ? Exactly.
  - tarsinge 6y ago
    Church is far from being the biggest offender in France for jobs close to children, there is a whole generation of public educators that were openly for it (for some overlapping with your first point like Cohn-Bendit).
    - mam2 6y ago
      Ecxept that the church has constantly been trying to cover up the stories and constant sex scandals. All the fucking time. At sone point "if you are not a groups of pedohpiles covering each other, dont act like a group of pedophiles covering each others". If i was pedophile i would absolutely go to the church, also because so many people have their faith blind the truth. The "cant even imagine" its possible this "respectable priest" can do that. And yes you are right, i also forgot sport trainers.
      - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
        The Catholic Church has covered up many other things. It has nothing to do with child sexual abuse per sē, but simply that it's modus operandī, and that of many other organizations seems to be silence money to protect it's brand.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
The obvious answer is because diversity trumps qualifications, and Silicon Valley companies are desperate to get their diversity numbers up.
- StellarTabi 6y ago
  Yep, gotta meet those diversity quotas, everywhere except board of directors, of course.
jefftk 6y ago
> However they seem to be denying the accusations that admins (possibly including the individual in question) were manually editing contents containing her name. Are you talking about replacing contents / titles with "[Removed by Reddit]"? That's the "Content Removed by Reddit Admins" category in https://www.redditinc.com/policies/transparency-report-2020-1 https://www.redditinc.com/policies/transparency-report-2020-...
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  According to the r/UKpolitics moderator that got banned, one of their comments was manually edited multiple times (first to change the content of the comment, then to fix typos in previous edits)[1]. Reddit hasn't refuted this. From context I've seen elsewhere, my guess is that the mod posted the text of the Spectator article in its entirely as a comment on their submission. Then, someone edited out the sentence which contained a passing mention of Aimee, but in a nongrammatical way. Then someone went back to fix the edit, and a little while later the comment was full-on deleted (so now it shows up as [ Removed By Reddit ]) [2] [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/mbytxw/_/gs0worp https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/mbytxw/_/gs0wor... [2]: Visible from the mod's user page but not on the submission itself
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    According to the r/UKpolitics moderator that got banned, one of their comments was manually edited multiple times (first to change the content of the comment, then to fix typos in previous edits)[1]. Reddit hasn't refuted this. It seems to me that the biggest problem with that specific situation, assuming the description is indeed correct, isn't that the admins of a forum have the power to edit content on their own site, but rather that if the content has been edited by the admins then this isn't necessarily being disclosed transparently to others, and by extension the original author might still be held responsible for something they did not in fact write. You might expect that, for legal CYA reasons if nothing else, a forum of Reddit's prominence where controversial subjects are sometimes discussed would at least keep some sort of irrefutable log of any changes made by its admins and clearly mark any content that has been edited by admins to avoid misrepresenting the original author. However, going by various other comments made over the past couple of days, it looks like this might not be the case, which seems dangerous for both Reddit and the people writing the content that gets changed.
jbroson 6y ago
I think the idea that we should cancel people because of what their parents or partners did is incredibly wrongheaded. Is there even a shred of evidence this person did anything illegal, immoral or unethical themselves? they hired their dad, BEFORE he was even convicted of crimes she had nothing at all to do with. That's the worst thing this person ever did? Usually I'm not a "cancel culture" critic but this is just insane.
Accujack 6y ago
> Does reddit have any audit trail or safeguards when admins edit comments? No, and despite being told multiple times over the years they have not made any attempt to develop anything like this, despite it being an obvious step to prevent admins from controlling group think on the site. My theory is that the company is worried that if they start letting people see under the covers that all the users will realize how much the site is used to manipulate them... deletions of "wrong think", bot posts, etc.
camdenlock 6y ago
> why would reddit hire a 23 year old admin whose greatest accomplishment is being forced out of politics due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? Hiring trans people gets you a lot of Virtue Credits. The incentives are clearly there. It’s ridiculous, of course. And I say this as a trans person.
shultays 6y ago
I remember related articles being flagged on HN as well. That is some very effective moderation tools
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  You yourself can flag any article you want, you just have to click a link at the top.
  - shultays 6y ago
    I am aware of it, it was a bad joke I guess. I wanted to say censorship (done by this site's users) was a thing. I would expect them doing the same if they were admins on reddit. I am doubting that this is a moderation tool going haywire
ttfxxcc 6y ago
>her connections to multiple pedophiles Why did maxwellhill stop posting and stopped moderating many frontpage subs after the child molester, ghilane maxwell got arrested?
jl6 6y ago
This person was probably hired because they have great trans advocacy credentials, which seems well aligned to the political orientation that Reddit is converging on. It’s easy to imagine how safeguarding issues were overlooked in a rush to hire an ally.
- binaryblitz 6y ago
  ding ding ding ding
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I suspect they are circling wagons and presenting a united front but this person will be fired or "resign" in the next day or so. She must not have told them about her history. You would think a network savvy company like Reddit would have HR department that can do a google search on someone's name though.
- smegger001 6y ago
  I wonder with her being a UK citizen how much the EU/UK"right to be forgotten" laws has made it harder to do background checks on this.
- wlonkly 6y ago
  This Verge article was updated an hour and a bit ago to say that they have indeed "cut ties". https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/24/22348255/reddit-moderator-blackout-protest-aimee-knight-uk-green-party https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/24/22348255/reddit-moderator...
exar0815 6y ago
Well, there is also the fact that Ellen Pao, former Reddit CEO, is linked to Partys by Epstein.[1] Also, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence alleging Ghislaine Maxwell was a powerful mod on reddit, with a very disgusting collection of "evidence"[2] [1]https://www.businessinsider.com/ghislaine-maxwell-attended-kleiner-perkins-vc-party-alleges-ellen-pao-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/ghislaine-maxwell-attended-k... [2]https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/hnckn0/umaxwellhill_the_reddit_account_with_the_8th_most/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/hnckn0/umaxwellhil...
- whymauri 6y ago
  Ellen Pao's tweetstorm about Epstein was so bizarre. I honestly viewed her as a good ally and champion for a lot of my values. Seeing her casually divest that she mingled with Epstein and co. completely shattered that. How can you advocate for women's rights and inclusion while fraternizing with Epstein and not seeing anything wrong with that... man, it bummed me out.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- SamBam 6y ago
  Number 2 has beed deleted.
  - sam2426679 6y ago
    The link is in the cached screenshot: https://archive.is/https://www.reddit.com/user/maxwellhill https://archive.is/https://www.reddit.com/user/maxwellhill
mansion7 6y ago
One can be forgiven a lot of one's politics are correct, especially if one has the mitigating status of minority status, even if it's a minority status that one grants oneself and no one is allowed to question. We've just witnessed two celebrities on the same show, make tweets comparing a political situation to Nazism. Only one was fired for it. One was conservative, the other liberal. If you immediately knew that one kept their job based purely on that description, the question of why Reddit would hire such a disastrous individual becomes much less mysterious.

unloco 6y ago

I pretty sure that response was as close to a post mortem as we are going to get.

brabel 6y ago

> due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? You mean, her own father? The article says her fiancee also had been accused of saying he feels attracted to children but they claim his account was hacked, which may be true as no one in their right mind would tweet something like that.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
I hate to be the guy that point this out, but no one should be Shamed for admitting they have a problem. Context matters whether they Were admitting attraction or endorsing the molestation of children
- i_haz_rabies 6y ago
  I hope you don't get downvoted for this. If you care about childrens welfare, you should be 100% in support of pedophiles coming forward and seeking help.
  - rory 6y ago
    Right, but the context here is not the guy seeking help. It's him explaining why he thinks it's okay for his girlfriend (now wife) to work with vulnerable children while he actively produces content fantasizing about raping children.
    - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
      Absolutely. My comment was meant as a generalization.
    - buisi 6y ago
      I don't think it makes sense to view producing such content as so frightening. https://web.archive.org/web/20190602191056/https://cphpost.dk/news/national/report-cartoon-paedophilia-harmless.html https://web.archive.org/web/20190602191056/https://cphpost.d... > Cartoons and drawings depicting paedophilia do not encourage people to commit child sex offences in real life, a report by experts who treat sexual problems concludes. The report, carried out by Sexologisk Klinik, which is a part of Rigshospitalet, was ordered by the former justice minister, Lars Barfod (Konservative), after the Socialdemokraterne, then in opposition, demanded a ban on drawings and animations of children being sexually abused. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.h... > The findings support the theory that potential sexual offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex crimes against children. While the authors do not approve of the use of real children in the production or distribution of child pornography, they say that artificially produced materials might serve a purpose.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sodality2 6y ago
And her partner.
tommica 6y ago
If the tweet was years ago, then I can easily imagine a kid tweeting something like that to be edgy/something else - I know I've said some stupid stuff as a kid
PH01 6y ago
Her partner posted content about being attracted to children as far back as 2015. A five year setup followed by a Twitter hack seems incredibly unlikely. Edit: The unique name used for her partners keybase account is associated with similar content posted in 2004. The evidence appears concrete that her partner is a self-confessed paedophile.
colpabar 6y ago
>no one in their right mind would tweet something like that. You must be blissfully unaware of the child-oriented fetishes that exist online. I know kink-shaming is a no-no, but I find it hard to believe that adults who participate in these activities don't have any desire to include real children. Just like I find it hard to believe that someone who uses an "islamic terrorist" target at a gun range doesn't have any desire to shoot a real one. EDIT: replace "islamic terrorist" with "gangster thug" (I don't like altering comments in this way so just pretend I did)
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Do you think it's wrong to target a terrorist?
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    it depends? when I was a kid, my tennis instructor used to prop up pictures of osama bin laden on hitting targets. a little odd to do with young children, but not a big deal I don't think. if "islamic terrorist" means a picture of someone wearing typical pashtun garb holding an ak, that's a bit less okay. it's kinda like people who are really into home defense. there's nothing wrong with people who train a lot to defend against a home invasion. but with some of them, you get the impression they actually hope it happens. not a great look.
    - philistine 6y ago
      It is a big deal that your hatred for a terrorist was used to improve your performance at a sport, when you were a kid. I despise Al-Qaida, but hating Bin Laden to such a level was exactly his goal. Proper warfare against Islamic terrorists means shielding children from senseless hate, not embracing it. Preparing children for a difficult world with tough problems and impossible solutions. You were taught that terrorism could be solved by throwing things at its nominal leader. During tennis practice!
    - jgwil2 6y ago
      Not gonna lie, that's kind of an insane thing for a tennis instructor of children to do.
defen 6y ago
> You mean, her own father? To be clear, the connection is not just that he is her father. He raped and tortured a 10 year old girl in his own house while living there with Aimee. Then after he had been charged but not yet convicted, she hired him as her campaign manager.
tyho 6y ago
Stop defending pedophile apologists before you know the full facts of the case. Her father raped and tortured (a car battery was involved) a ten year old. This happened over multiple days whilst the child was tied to the rafters in the attic of the family home. This is the same house Aimee Chancellor was living in at the time. But she claims she didn't know and she was not on trial. Regardless, during the trial photos of Aimee with the victim were discovered on Amiee's phone. After her father was arrested and charged with 22 counts of sexual violence, she forged documents in order to hire him as her election agent. This is a position where he would have had contact with children. She was kicked out the Green party when this came to light. She then joined another political party, and was kicked out of that after her fiance was found to have tweeted: "I fantasise about children having sex, sometimes with adults, sometimes with other children, sometimes kidnapped and forced into bad situations." They were both contacted by the media about this, she claimed he had been hacked, he claimed that these were only fantasies, and would never act on these urges... She later married him. Amiee Chancellor is a despicable human being who can only be viewed positively if she is compared to the people she chooses to surround herself with.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  I'm confused. Your comment talks about her father and her fiance. What did she do? "Amiee Chancellor is a despicable human being" is pretty heavy, but the only thing related to her in your comment is that "she forged documents in order to hire him as her election agent." Not cool, but is there more here?
  - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
    "photos on her phone" is pretty damning.
    - sillysaurusx 6y ago
      Oh wow, I completely missed that. Sorry! Regardless, during the trial photos of Aimee with the victim were discovered on Amiee's phone. Thanks for pointing that out. Yes of course, that's completely different. Does anyone know where to find more info about this? It's such a strange situation. EDIT: There are some details here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/coventry-captive-girl-attic-torture-den-david-challenor-coventry-a8502991.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/coventry-captive... though nothing about Aimee being in the photos. I'm curious how she wasn't implicated in that case. How weird...
esja 6y ago
The account wasn't hacked. Aimee lied about that, along with many other things, in order to protect a pedophile (again).

defen 6y ago

Sadly, my default guess here is that whoever approved the hire did so because they wanted to partake in whatever grooming or other illegal activities that the new admin could facilitate.

Sebb767 6y ago

> possibly including the individual in question Even assuming that Reddit learned nothing from the /u/spez-debacle and that admins can still edit comments, it would be a problem in its own right if she already had such far-reaching permissions when just getting started.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

trident5000 6y ago

The CEO himself admitted to going into The_Donald subreddit (before it was banned) and editing user comments. I don't think this guy is leading the charge to admin transparency. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comments_n_5839cf32e4b000af95ee5b68 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comment...

pen2l 6y ago
This gets brought up a lot. And it's a bit of a doozy to make sense of. First, consider the context: the CEO (spez) was an easy punching bag on the_donald subreddit, in fact it was a bit of a meme there to attack reddit's admins (and those in the know do know that the attacks were often crossing a line, like accusing them of being pedophiles and things of the nature). The change that spez made was a bit of a joke itself, it was turning an attack on its head. If the edit had been made in the early early days of Reddit, especially in the jokey context it was made in, I don't think anyone would have batted an eyelash. But in the last few years, right around the time these things happened, it became clear that Reddit is a big deal. I think what I'm trying to say is, whatever may be your feelings of Reddit and its stature, this particular act by spez was pretty insignifiant in the grand scheme of things. Indeed the subreddit that this happened in actually no longer even exists, the_donald and similar subreddits were banned to make Reddit a friendlier place such that it's now an easier decision for corporate America to put ads on there.
- serial_dev 6y ago
  Just replace spez and reddit with Zuckerberg and Facebook and you'll immediately understand why it is bad. Just imagine Mark editing your posts. CEOs shouldn't be monkeying around without a transparent changelog with user content.
  - justbored123 6y ago
    Why not? Is their company and you are not paying them a damn thing. Why the entitlement if you are not paying for the service that you are enjoying? That's not how the world works. If you are not paying don't complain, just move to another site or pay for the service so you are under a different contract and relation and you are no longer the product and are the customer instead. You are not the customer of Facebook, Reddit or Google, the ads buyers are, and the customer is always right. If they don't like your post, it makes all the sense in the world to change it, censor it or kick you out because you are making them lose money and they are not a non-profit existing to serve you. They exist to make money for their share-holders like any other corporation.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

I'm asking myself the same question. There many LGBT+ activists out there; hiring this particular person is just asking for trouble. And the current censorship situation simply makes no sense.

duxup 6y ago

Reddit administration seems pretty ad hoc, undisciplined, at times weirdly disconnected from the community, and uncoordinated as it could possibly be. Then again so are all its subreddits, and the volunteer mods are about as opaque and strange as the admins, with the added excuse that they're doing it for free. The fact that the ecosystem has survived seems more like happenstance.

nonplussed 6y ago
It'd be interesting to see demographics on moderators. My perception is that they must skew young because who else has time to do all that work for free? Volunteer moderation is one of those things that must baffle economists. Here you have people putting in a lot of work for free for a profit seeking enterprise.
- duxup 6y ago
  Yeah I used to voluenteer moderate a very busy gaming forum and I quit when I got older.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  Some economists maybe? Perhaps, if you think the only thing to gain is money? Some people do silly things because of other reasons (fame, ego, obligation, greed, retribution, etc). See recent 'stonks' as a good example of people actually spending money for non monetary gain. It is these other factors which feed into many economic models unknowingly. When those variables move they can radically change a model and cause it to do funny things.
- notahacker 6y ago
  > Volunteer moderation is one of those things that must baffle economists They do the same thing for the same reasons when it comes to peer review...
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  Which is why it attracts those for whom power is it's own reward.

akhilcacharya 6y ago

The obvious answer is they probably didn't, this is probably a pseudo QAnon/Pizzagate conspiracy theory where people were "censored" for the harassment of a random person.

kart23 6y ago
Reddit admins have confirmed she is an employee. And there are a bunch of reputable articles of her actions and controversy from years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/mbqgx2/a_clarification_on_actioning_and_employee_names/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/mbqgx2/a_clarif...
skinnymuch 6y ago
Funny that you so casually dismissing something with many facts around it makes you more like any Q related stuff.

esja 6y ago

I agree, but a minor nitpick: Aimee was forced out not just for being connected to pedophiles, but also for lying about and/or endorsing them (among other issues). A massive failure of safeguarding from the Greens and Lib Dems, and now from Reddit. It's astonishing to me that a person like this can become an admin on a website used by millions of teenagers. We already know that admins can access private messages and other personal information.

mam2 6y ago
I am 100% convinced that the rate of pedophile is higher in: - positions of power (we have had a few in france who were judges / party representatives etC...) - any job close to children, which includes in particular schools, but also.. - church Why ? Because if you woke up tommorow as a pedophile, without any morals, and wanted to maximise the "chances" to satisfy your sexual attraction, where would you go ? Exactly.
- tarsinge 6y ago
  Church is far from being the biggest offender in France for jobs close to children, there is a whole generation of public educators that were openly for it (for some overlapping with your first point like Cohn-Bendit).
  - mam2 6y ago
    Ecxept that the church has constantly been trying to cover up the stories and constant sex scandals. All the fucking time. At sone point "if you are not a groups of pedohpiles covering each other, dont act like a group of pedophiles covering each others". If i was pedophile i would absolutely go to the church, also because so many people have their faith blind the truth. The "cant even imagine" its possible this "respectable priest" can do that. And yes you are right, i also forgot sport trainers.
    - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      The Catholic Church has covered up many other things. It has nothing to do with child sexual abuse per sē, but simply that it's modus operandī, and that of many other organizations seems to be silence money to protect it's brand.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

The obvious answer is because diversity trumps qualifications, and Silicon Valley companies are desperate to get their diversity numbers up.

StellarTabi 6y ago
Yep, gotta meet those diversity quotas, everywhere except board of directors, of course.

jefftk 6y ago

> However they seem to be denying the accusations that admins (possibly including the individual in question) were manually editing contents containing her name. Are you talking about replacing contents / titles with "[Removed by Reddit]"? That's the "Content Removed by Reddit Admins" category in https://www.redditinc.com/policies/transparency-report-2020-1 https://www.redditinc.com/policies/transparency-report-2020-...

Rebelgecko 6y ago
According to the r/UKpolitics moderator that got banned, one of their comments was manually edited multiple times (first to change the content of the comment, then to fix typos in previous edits)[1]. Reddit hasn't refuted this. From context I've seen elsewhere, my guess is that the mod posted the text of the Spectator article in its entirely as a comment on their submission. Then, someone edited out the sentence which contained a passing mention of Aimee, but in a nongrammatical way. Then someone went back to fix the edit, and a little while later the comment was full-on deleted (so now it shows up as [ Removed By Reddit ]) [2] [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/mbytxw/_/gs0worp https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/mbytxw/_/gs0wor... [2]: Visible from the mod's user page but not on the submission itself
- Silhouette 6y ago
  According to the r/UKpolitics moderator that got banned, one of their comments was manually edited multiple times (first to change the content of the comment, then to fix typos in previous edits)[1]. Reddit hasn't refuted this. It seems to me that the biggest problem with that specific situation, assuming the description is indeed correct, isn't that the admins of a forum have the power to edit content on their own site, but rather that if the content has been edited by the admins then this isn't necessarily being disclosed transparently to others, and by extension the original author might still be held responsible for something they did not in fact write. You might expect that, for legal CYA reasons if nothing else, a forum of Reddit's prominence where controversial subjects are sometimes discussed would at least keep some sort of irrefutable log of any changes made by its admins and clearly mark any content that has been edited by admins to avoid misrepresenting the original author. However, going by various other comments made over the past couple of days, it looks like this might not be the case, which seems dangerous for both Reddit and the people writing the content that gets changed.

jbroson 6y ago

I think the idea that we should cancel people because of what their parents or partners did is incredibly wrongheaded. Is there even a shred of evidence this person did anything illegal, immoral or unethical themselves? they hired their dad, BEFORE he was even convicted of crimes she had nothing at all to do with. That's the worst thing this person ever did? Usually I'm not a "cancel culture" critic but this is just insane.

Accujack 6y ago

> Does reddit have any audit trail or safeguards when admins edit comments? No, and despite being told multiple times over the years they have not made any attempt to develop anything like this, despite it being an obvious step to prevent admins from controlling group think on the site. My theory is that the company is worried that if they start letting people see under the covers that all the users will realize how much the site is used to manipulate them... deletions of "wrong think", bot posts, etc.

camdenlock 6y ago

> why would reddit hire a 23 year old admin whose greatest accomplishment is being forced out of politics due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? Hiring trans people gets you a lot of Virtue Credits. The incentives are clearly there. It’s ridiculous, of course. And I say this as a trans person.

shultays 6y ago

I remember related articles being flagged on HN as well. That is some very effective moderation tools

tinus_hn 6y ago
You yourself can flag any article you want, you just have to click a link at the top.
- shultays 6y ago
  I am aware of it, it was a bad joke I guess. I wanted to say censorship (done by this site's users) was a thing. I would expect them doing the same if they were admins on reddit. I am doubting that this is a moderation tool going haywire

ttfxxcc 6y ago

>her connections to multiple pedophiles Why did maxwellhill stop posting and stopped moderating many frontpage subs after the child molester, ghilane maxwell got arrested?

jl6 6y ago

This person was probably hired because they have great trans advocacy credentials, which seems well aligned to the political orientation that Reddit is converging on. It’s easy to imagine how safeguarding issues were overlooked in a rush to hire an ally.

binaryblitz 6y ago
ding ding ding ding

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I suspect they are circling wagons and presenting a united front but this person will be fired or "resign" in the next day or so. She must not have told them about her history. You would think a network savvy company like Reddit would have HR department that can do a google search on someone's name though.

smegger001 6y ago
I wonder with her being a UK citizen how much the EU/UK"right to be forgotten" laws has made it harder to do background checks on this.
wlonkly 6y ago
This Verge article was updated an hour and a bit ago to say that they have indeed "cut ties". https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/24/22348255/reddit-moderator-blackout-protest-aimee-knight-uk-green-party https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/24/22348255/reddit-moderator...

exar0815 6y ago

Well, there is also the fact that Ellen Pao, former Reddit CEO, is linked to Partys by Epstein.[1] Also, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence alleging Ghislaine Maxwell was a powerful mod on reddit, with a very disgusting collection of "evidence"[2] [1]https://www.businessinsider.com/ghislaine-maxwell-attended-kleiner-perkins-vc-party-alleges-ellen-pao-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/ghislaine-maxwell-attended-k... [2]https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/hnckn0/umaxwellhill_the_reddit_account_with_the_8th_most/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/hnckn0/umaxwellhil...

whymauri 6y ago
Ellen Pao's tweetstorm about Epstein was so bizarre. I honestly viewed her as a good ally and champion for a lot of my values. Seeing her casually divest that she mingled with Epstein and co. completely shattered that. How can you advocate for women's rights and inclusion while fraternizing with Epstein and not seeing anything wrong with that... man, it bummed me out.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
SamBam 6y ago
Number 2 has beed deleted.
- sam2426679 6y ago
  The link is in the cached screenshot: https://archive.is/https://www.reddit.com/user/maxwellhill https://archive.is/https://www.reddit.com/user/maxwellhill

mansion7 6y ago

One can be forgiven a lot of one's politics are correct, especially if one has the mitigating status of minority status, even if it's a minority status that one grants oneself and no one is allowed to question. We've just witnessed two celebrities on the same show, make tweets comparing a political situation to Nazism. Only one was fired for it. One was conservative, the other liberal. If you immediately knew that one kept their job based purely on that description, the question of why Reddit would hire such a disastrous individual becomes much less mysterious.