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by mandmandam 1156 days ago
Steve Huffman, aka 'spez'?

Wasn't he the guy who got caught anonymously rewriting user comments?

Secretly editing user comments, without a trace. As CEO.

...

Seems weird that this hasn't been brought up yet - maybe it was covered in the podcast?
2 comments
bloopernova 1156 days ago
Yep, that was him. He had an admin login to their prod database.

Honestly wish that signing comments was supported in more forums/aggregators. I know I can do it manually but I want verification built into the site.

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mandmandam 1156 days ago
Huffman also seems to be the guy who edited a list of co-founders to remove Aaron Swarz. [0]

He also said - after Swarz's death - that Swarz wasn't a co-founder. 'Unpersoned', I think is the correct term for such as this.

So... I'm left wondering why anyone is listening to this guy. Especially on a subject where he has been caught lying and rewriting history multiple times.

0 - https://web.archive.org/web/20201005184849/https://www.reddi... - Archive link necessary as the original has a deleted user, a deleted post, and many deleted comments. In fact, the entire sub (watchRedditDie) was ended, partly because Huffman reneged on a promise to reinstate Swarz on the founders list [1].

1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchRedditDie/comments/vd2wj8/were...

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jjulius 1156 days ago
>So... I'm left wondering why anyone is listening to this guy. Especially on a subject where he has been caught lying and rewriting history multiple times.

Hot take: Because their push for more users was successful, resulting in a massively large user base, the majority of which I would argue is the "lowest common denominator" crowd (read: mindless consumption) and would more quickly go, "Reddit cool, spez cool" than actually pay attention to what's happening there internally.

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roflyear 1156 days ago
He did it in a pretty obvious way and said he did it basically but yah
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yjftsjthsd-h 1156 days ago
He did it, then got caught, then admitted to it. The one mitigating point is that he did say he was sorry and that he wouldn't do it again. Mind, I'm saying this as somebody who deleted my account over this exact incident (straw that broke the camel's back), but there it is.
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roflyear 1155 days ago
Oh, I'm not defending him.
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