With the online hate speech in social media platforms, the issue of fake news in Facebook and banned accounts in Twitter, Reddit has its own battle to deal with. It recently banned the Pizzagate subreddit that had been responsible for some conspiracy theories that are often related to Hillary Clinton. That caused members of the The_Donald, who are supporters of the President-elect, to openly criticize Reddit CEO Steve Huffman. He retaliated by editing their posts that now led for some Redditors to call for his resignation.
Online is the least place you want to be this holiday season. The environment is so toxic that many accounts in different social media platforms have been blocked or banned. The Pizzagate subreddit suffered the same fate for its dedication to conspiracy theories. The management eventually decided to ban it. This action was not welcomed by the members of The_Donald. They vented out their frustration by targeting Huffman with critical comments. Now, it has become worse as Huffman admitted to editing their posts. He did that by redirecting their comments to the moderators of The_Donald.
Huffman explained what he did in a post and added that "as much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly". Apparently, it did get the worst out of him. Huffman assured that he will not edit posts again since their community team is pissed at him for what he did.
Free speech is often abused by a lot of people. This is why forums like Reddit actually has authority to ban posts or accounts that they think are inappropriate. However, Huffman actions certainly went beyond that by actually meddling with people's comments, according to Engadget. He made the wrong judgement by doing that instead of banning their accounts altogether for throwing him the worse of insults.
In response to Huffman's admission, one comment said that editing other person's comment is a "bigger violation of Reddit [Terms of Service] than whatever Pizzagate is accused of doing", according to CNET. This is putting mildly to what some Redditors think should happen. The Blaze reports that Huffman is accused of "censoring parts of Reddit, the administration does not agree with". Some went far by calling for his resignation.
It was only last year that Reddit's former CEO Ellen Pao stepped down. There was a petition that called for her removal. It had over 200,000 signatures. Apparently, Reddit users felt mistreated by the forum's administrators. Pao was replaced by Huffman, Reddit's co-founder.
