4 ms·

Interview With Reddit Troll, 'Violentacrez' (video)

22 points by mikek 14y ago

freeslave 14y ago
this whole thing has really turned me off reddit. i blocked it in my /etc/hosts and my productivity has gone way up. also, makes me appreciate the efforts of HN to keep things civil and intelligent - even if it means a lot of my posts and comments go nowhere.
- jimmybrite 14y ago
  Doxxing him and ruining his life was okay then? Even though he didn't post or created those creepy subreddits which you have the liberty NOT to go to?
  - freeslave 14y ago
    he ruined his own life.
    - tbirdz 14y ago
      blame the victim mentality.
      - ajays 14y ago
        Why is he a victim? He chose to make his identity known to people! He attended Reddit meetups. People knew him. Was he not aware that he was trolling and doing nasty stuff? If he was unaware, then I can understand him feeling like a victim; but he was fully aware that his actions were considered abhorrent by many people, and still persisted. So, naturally, people want to know who this person is, what makes him tick, etc.
        stfu 14y ago
        That was in my opinion exactly his mistake. He got to comfortable.
      - king_jester 14y ago
        The victims in this case are the people who were stalked and harassed by people posting to creepshots, not violentacrez.
  - bmm6o 14y ago
    > Doxxing him and ruining his life was okay then? False dichotomy, one can think they are both bad.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Even though he didn't post or created those creepy subreddits What? VA certainly did create a lot of them (e.g. /r/PicsOfDeadJailbait) and he moderated and posted on most. (This is not a post pro or against the recent events)
- Legion 14y ago
  > this whole thing has really turned me off reddit. To me, that's like saying, "that dirty alt.binaries.whatever group really turned me off USENET." The reddit I visit doesn't have any violentacrez. Nor does the reddit my wife visits. The thing reddit gets right is the ability to customize and narrowly define what content you get fed. Mine looks like a more scattered HN. My wife's looks like a text-based Pinterest.
  - MrMember 14y ago
    Exactly right. Unsubscribe from all of the default subs, then find specific subs for your interests and subscribe to them.
  - bmm6o 14y ago
    That is the difference between a protocol and a site/platform. As an operator, you could choose not to carry news groups that you find objectionable. Or you can choose not to visit websites you don't want to support. Reddit is too monolithic for that. It's true that you can not see it our pretend it's not there, but one of the few ways to promote change is to not visit the site at all.
sergiotapia 14y ago
On the one hand I feel bad for his wife, she's suffering over something she had nothing to do with. Her husband lost his job and now she has no health care insurance. On the other hand, this guy was posting a TON of offensive, downright disgusting content. He was stupid enough to share his personal information with someone online, that's his fault. Doing stupid shit online + sharing who you are in real life (even to a single person) = you're going to have a bad time.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > now she has no health care insurance. More than anything else, this is yet another condemnation of the American health care system.
  - ericclemmons 14y ago
    Joining healthcare to a single place of employment was a mistake from the very beginning. Luckily, health care is comparable when purchased separately, depending on obvious factors.
taytus 14y ago
I'm not blaming Reddit for what this guy posted, but the truth is that Reddit encouraged this kind of posts (they gave him an award!). Let's see how this affect reddit in the future.
- swordswinger12 14y ago
  The awards were based on community voting, Reddit had no control over who won.
  - themstheones 14y ago
    But Reddit is more about the community than the organization that runs it.
    - JGNWW 14y ago
      Which is all fine and dandy, but I'm pretty sure that the community isn't seeing many of those ad dollars.
  - aes256 14y ago
    Beyond /r/jailbait being voted subreddit of the year, and violentacrez moderator of the year, violentacrez was an important factor in Reddit's rise to prominence. He drove a huge amount of traffic to the site in the early days with his porn subreddits.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
naner 14y ago
It seems like he is only remorseful because he got caught. And as Cooper pointed out: he only mentions the negative impact on himself and his family (what about the girls whose photos he posted?) and tries to shift most of the responsibility to Reddit.
- aes256 14y ago
  It's a weird fall from grace for violentacrez. Redditors, in general, loved what he did. His subreddits were hugely popular; /r/jailbait was once voted subreddit of the year by the community, and he himself was once moderator of the year. Now he has been unmasked he is facing the wrath of the wider population, which doesn't 'get' Internet humor, the tongue-in-cheek nature of trolling, will never admit to finding teenagers attractive, etc. Meanwhile, in distancing themselves from him, the Reddit staff have thrown him under the bus. You can see why it's tricky for him. Part of me thinks he doesn't really have anything to apologize for.
  - naner 14y ago
    The demographic of Reddit that enjoyed what he did (or at least thought is was funny or exercising "free speech") has been consistenly getting smaller and less influential as Reddit has gained more mainstream popularity. Reddit's employees never really loved the guy (AFAICT) but they tolerated him because he moderated and kept illegal content out of his subreddits and they sure as hell didn't want to touch any of that stuff. Violentacrez turned on Reddit as soon as he was outed, looking for any scapegoat to take some of the pressure off of himself. All things considered, I'm not suprised that Reddit is not backing him up.
    - aes256 14y ago
      I don't think violentacrez is using Reddit as a scapegoat. I think he's genuinely and understandably surprised by the outrage. It's that transition from being hailed as an Internet hero to being derided as a vile monster that has just left him bewildered. From what I understand he was instrumental in driving traffic to the site in the early days, and contributed a great deal to not only moderating his own subreddits (including many of the most popular subreddits) but training other moderators. An awful lot of people held violentacrez in high regard despite his controversial antics, but now this has all blown up in the media, violentacrez himself is being used as a scapegoat.
nicholas_tuzzio 14y ago
I really wish people would stop posting about this most recent bout of reddit drama on HN. Are people not noticing that every article so far has been deleted?
- meritt 14y ago
  Huh. I didn't view this as a Reddit vs. HN elitism post. I viewed it as a solid example of the inherent problems with balancing anonymity, legality of content and freedom of speech on a user-generated website.
  - deleted 14y ago
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  - nicholas_tuzzio 14y ago
    I'm a really big fan of reddit in some ways and I have been following this drama very closely. I just don't think it's appropriate for HN.
heed 14y ago
Why would this man agree to interviewed? Does he like the attention? Does he actually regret his actions? Does he like when others think of him in disgust? His intentions here are suspect to me. Possibly one more troll?
- aes256 14y ago
  It's good PR for him, a chance to humanize himself, to explain his actions, and to appear somewhat remorseful. He's not some vile monster, he's just a regular family man who enjoyed a bit of Internet trolling in his spare time. He didn't do anything illegal, and throughout his time on Reddit he was being cheered on by a broadly supportive community.
koeselitz 14y ago
And he instantly regrets it: "CNN was a huge mistake, which I will not repeat." http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/11pka1/violentacrez_on_cnn/c6onip4 http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/11pka1/violentacrez_on...
wilco0925 14y ago
"He has a gift for pushing buddons"

22 points by mikek 14y ago

this whole thing has really turned me off reddit. i blocked it in my /etc/hosts and my productivity has gone way up. also, makes me appreciate the efforts of HN to keep things civil and intelligent - even if it means a lot of my posts and comments go nowhere.

jimmybrite 14y ago
Doxxing him and ruining his life was okay then? Even though he didn't post or created those creepy subreddits which you have the liberty NOT to go to?
- freeslave 14y ago
  he ruined his own life.
  - tbirdz 14y ago
    blame the victim mentality.
    - ajays 14y ago
      Why is he a victim? He chose to make his identity known to people! He attended Reddit meetups. People knew him. Was he not aware that he was trolling and doing nasty stuff? If he was unaware, then I can understand him feeling like a victim; but he was fully aware that his actions were considered abhorrent by many people, and still persisted. So, naturally, people want to know who this person is, what makes him tick, etc.
      - stfu 14y ago
        That was in my opinion exactly his mistake. He got to comfortable.
    - king_jester 14y ago
      The victims in this case are the people who were stalked and harassed by people posting to creepshots, not violentacrez.
- bmm6o 14y ago
  > Doxxing him and ruining his life was okay then? False dichotomy, one can think they are both bad.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Even though he didn't post or created those creepy subreddits What? VA certainly did create a lot of them (e.g. /r/PicsOfDeadJailbait) and he moderated and posted on most. (This is not a post pro or against the recent events)
Legion 14y ago
> this whole thing has really turned me off reddit. To me, that's like saying, "that dirty alt.binaries.whatever group really turned me off USENET." The reddit I visit doesn't have any violentacrez. Nor does the reddit my wife visits. The thing reddit gets right is the ability to customize and narrowly define what content you get fed. Mine looks like a more scattered HN. My wife's looks like a text-based Pinterest.
- MrMember 14y ago
  Exactly right. Unsubscribe from all of the default subs, then find specific subs for your interests and subscribe to them.
- bmm6o 14y ago
  That is the difference between a protocol and a site/platform. As an operator, you could choose not to carry news groups that you find objectionable. Or you can choose not to visit websites you don't want to support. Reddit is too monolithic for that. It's true that you can not see it our pretend it's not there, but one of the few ways to promote change is to not visit the site at all.

sergiotapia 14y ago

On the one hand I feel bad for his wife, she's suffering over something she had nothing to do with. Her husband lost his job and now she has no health care insurance. On the other hand, this guy was posting a TON of offensive, downright disgusting content. He was stupid enough to share his personal information with someone online, that's his fault. Doing stupid shit online + sharing who you are in real life (even to a single person) = you're going to have a bad time.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> now she has no health care insurance. More than anything else, this is yet another condemnation of the American health care system.
- ericclemmons 14y ago
  Joining healthcare to a single place of employment was a mistake from the very beginning. Luckily, health care is comparable when purchased separately, depending on obvious factors.

taytus 14y ago

I'm not blaming Reddit for what this guy posted, but the truth is that Reddit encouraged this kind of posts (they gave him an award!). Let's see how this affect reddit in the future.

swordswinger12 14y ago
The awards were based on community voting, Reddit had no control over who won.
- themstheones 14y ago
  But Reddit is more about the community than the organization that runs it.
  - JGNWW 14y ago
    Which is all fine and dandy, but I'm pretty sure that the community isn't seeing many of those ad dollars.
- aes256 14y ago
  Beyond /r/jailbait being voted subreddit of the year, and violentacrez moderator of the year, violentacrez was an important factor in Reddit's rise to prominence. He drove a huge amount of traffic to the site in the early days with his porn subreddits.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

naner 14y ago

It seems like he is only remorseful because he got caught. And as Cooper pointed out: he only mentions the negative impact on himself and his family (what about the girls whose photos he posted?) and tries to shift most of the responsibility to Reddit.

aes256 14y ago
It's a weird fall from grace for violentacrez. Redditors, in general, loved what he did. His subreddits were hugely popular; /r/jailbait was once voted subreddit of the year by the community, and he himself was once moderator of the year. Now he has been unmasked he is facing the wrath of the wider population, which doesn't 'get' Internet humor, the tongue-in-cheek nature of trolling, will never admit to finding teenagers attractive, etc. Meanwhile, in distancing themselves from him, the Reddit staff have thrown him under the bus. You can see why it's tricky for him. Part of me thinks he doesn't really have anything to apologize for.
- naner 14y ago
  The demographic of Reddit that enjoyed what he did (or at least thought is was funny or exercising "free speech") has been consistenly getting smaller and less influential as Reddit has gained more mainstream popularity. Reddit's employees never really loved the guy (AFAICT) but they tolerated him because he moderated and kept illegal content out of his subreddits and they sure as hell didn't want to touch any of that stuff. Violentacrez turned on Reddit as soon as he was outed, looking for any scapegoat to take some of the pressure off of himself. All things considered, I'm not suprised that Reddit is not backing him up.
  - aes256 14y ago
    I don't think violentacrez is using Reddit as a scapegoat. I think he's genuinely and understandably surprised by the outrage. It's that transition from being hailed as an Internet hero to being derided as a vile monster that has just left him bewildered. From what I understand he was instrumental in driving traffic to the site in the early days, and contributed a great deal to not only moderating his own subreddits (including many of the most popular subreddits) but training other moderators. An awful lot of people held violentacrez in high regard despite his controversial antics, but now this has all blown up in the media, violentacrez himself is being used as a scapegoat.

nicholas_tuzzio 14y ago

I really wish people would stop posting about this most recent bout of reddit drama on HN. Are people not noticing that every article so far has been deleted?

meritt 14y ago
Huh. I didn't view this as a Reddit vs. HN elitism post. I viewed it as a solid example of the inherent problems with balancing anonymity, legality of content and freedom of speech on a user-generated website.
- deleted 14y ago
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- nicholas_tuzzio 14y ago
  I'm a really big fan of reddit in some ways and I have been following this drama very closely. I just don't think it's appropriate for HN.

heed 14y ago

Why would this man agree to interviewed? Does he like the attention? Does he actually regret his actions? Does he like when others think of him in disgust? His intentions here are suspect to me. Possibly one more troll?

aes256 14y ago
It's good PR for him, a chance to humanize himself, to explain his actions, and to appear somewhat remorseful. He's not some vile monster, he's just a regular family man who enjoyed a bit of Internet trolling in his spare time. He didn't do anything illegal, and throughout his time on Reddit he was being cheered on by a broadly supportive community.

koeselitz 14y ago

And he instantly regrets it: "CNN was a huge mistake, which I will not repeat." http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/11pka1/violentacrez_on_cnn/c6onip4 http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/11pka1/violentacrez_on...

wilco0925 14y ago

"He has a gift for pushing buddons"