Reddit CEO Says He Edited Posts Without Users' Consent

The CEO of Reddit has admitted to editing posts critical of him without the consent or knowledge of the users whose posts were changed, BuzzFeed reports. According to Business Insider, it started with Reddit shutting down the "Pizzagate" page because it didn't "want witch hunts on our site." The Pizzagate page was dedicated to proving a fake news story and conspiracy theory tying Hillary Clinton to a pizza-shop pedophile ring. Members of the pro-Trump Reddit page The_Donald then started hurling abuse at Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, including his username "spez" so he was notified every time.

Later, those same users noticed their posts had been edited to replace "spez" with the usernames of The_Donald moderators; they—rightly—accused Reddit of censoring their posts. In a Reddit post Thursday, Huffman admitted to altering posts for "about an hour." "As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly," he said. "As the CEO, I shouldn't play such games, and it's all fixed now." He added: "It's been a long week" and the "community team is pretty pissed at me." Huffman replaced former CEO Ellen Pao, who resigned after being criticized for shutting down Reddit pages centering on sexism, racism, and fat-shaming. (More Reddit stories.)