Reddit CEO is Late to the Party: Realizes Trolling Isn’t Cool

Last month, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, frustrated with the bullying and personal attacks taking place in the The_Donald subreddit group, decided to use a tactic that had been successful in the past: trolling the trolls. Initially believing that meeting them on their level would bring them to their senses, Huffman soon realized that most the interactions on his site had become embarrassingly toxic.

With the The_Donald dominating Reddit’s conversation, users were, in violation of the Reddit Conduct Policy, exposed to coded hate speech and other abuse that wasn’t effectively monitored by the group’s moderators. Due to Reddit’s hand’s off policy, the moderators were frequently involved in posting violations themselves, as well as manipulating the sticky and upvoting functionality to get the group’s content to appear at the top of the more popular pages.

After many months of being harassed by members of The_Donald (the frequent references to pedophilia were particularly maddening), Huffman edited some of their attacks, removing his name and replacing it with the names of the lead moderators of the The_Donald group. When the tactic was exposed, Huffman quickly posted an apology, vowing to “…never risk your trust like this again, and we are updating our internal controls to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.”

If these “internal controls” include increased action against moderators and users who violate the Conduct Policy, I see things smoothing out. Unfortunately, the controls are primarily meant to reduce the The_Donald’s visibility on Reddit. The moderators are fighting back, while other moderators are calling for the banishment of the group. When the dust settles, what may be gone is Huffman’s company.