Conservatives and Trump supporters were often cautious about what they posted onto social media websites like Facebook or Twitter. They knew very well that their status updates or tweets supporting the President-Elect may be censored. However, now a very reliable website for Trump supporters is at fault: Reddit.
On Thursday, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confessed and apologized for censoring and editing pro-Trump posts and comments on their website. He said that they made the decision after pro-Trump users hurled verbal abuse and expletive-laced comments in his direction.
The story began earlier this week with Reddit shutting down the r/Pizzagate subreddit in the hopes that the site would stop a witch hunt over a fake news article that ran on the New York Times. The fake news article alleged that a Washington D.C. pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, was a front for a child-trafficking ring run by Hillary Clinton.
After Reddit successfully shut down r/Pizzagate, users of the most popular Donald Trump subreddit “r/The_Donald” began leaving comments for Huffman with the sign off “F**k u/spez” (u/spez is Huffman’s Reddit username).
On Wednesday, however, users noticed that their posts were being edited without their previous knowledge or consent, and started hurling insults at r/The_Donald moderators. They accused Reddit leadership of censoring their posts — and they were right.
Huffman finally came clean on Thursday in this post:
Yep. I messed with the “f**k u/spez ” comments, replacing “spez” with r/the_donald mods for about an hour. It’s been a long week here trying to unwind the r/pizzagate stuff. As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly. As the CEO, I shouldn’t play such games, and it’s all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won’t do this again.
F**k u/spez.”
Now, users of r/The_Donald are accusing Huffman of destroying Reddit’s credibility, citing his contentious relationship with pro-Trump users as a motive for the crackdown. And while Trump campaigned on fighting both the Democrats and the mainstream media, it looks like the fight is boiling over into social media as well.
