Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has publicly admitted to editing comments on the pro-Donald Trump subreddit r/the_donald in a move he has described as “trolling the trolls”. Huffman – who goes by “spez” on Reddit – deleted comments from the pro-Trump community on the site, and also altered comments that insulted him. He replaced comments reading “fuck u/spez” with those of the users who moderate the thread. This meant the criticism directed towards him appeared to be attacking the thread’s own moderators.
Users of r/the_donald had taken to insulting Huffman this week after he removed the subreddit r/pizzagate – a place for people to go to share updates on the conspiracy theory that a Washington pizzeria is a front for a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton. “It does get old getting called a pedophile constantly,” Huffman wrote to explain why he moderated the comments.
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