Reddit has been under fire since the company’s co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman admitted that he actively changed posts by Trump supporters on the site. The subreddit r/The_Donald is the most active one for Trump fans. On Thursday Huffman admitted in a post on the subreddit that he changed comments that targeted him personally by switching his Reddit username, u/spez, for the usernames of the Trump page’s moderators, so the hateful attacks seemed to be aimed at them. The spontaneous editing only went on for an hour, but the damage was already done.

Huffman said that it had been a long week trying to recover from “pizzagate” and being called a pedophile, but that his community team is “pretty pissed” at him so he won’t do it again any time soon. Pizzagate refers to an insane conspiracy theory that spread quickly through fake news articles and on Reddit, alleging that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a child trafficking business out of a pizzeria in Washington D.C. called Comet Ping Pong.

The pizzeria is real but the story is not, and the owner and staff endured threats and harassment when fired-up people believed the story was true. After Reddit decided to shut down the Pizzagate thread, Huffman got targeted instead. And some people still believe the fake story.

The less obvious upshot to Reddit CEO editing posts: will likely draw more attention to whatever nefariousness he was protecting #pizzagate

— Paul Nehlen (@pnehlen) November 24, 2016

But some people think arbitrary editing should be okay in cases where the original posts are harassing.

tbh I approve of the CEOs behavior. Harassing posts should be subject to edit at the site owner’s whim https://t.co/E63Qf3Ugh6

— Matthew Martin (@hyperplanes) November 28, 2016

However, many Reddit users called Huffman’s actions unethical and called for his resignation. And a legal site called Associate’s Mind argued in an online piece that this might have consequences for how Reddit will be treated under the law in the future. If it is no longer simply a medium for people to express their opinions, but rather a website where admins and owners edit content and express their own opinions, the company might be liable for content posted on it.

Huffman has not commented on some of the r/The_Donald subreddit users’ calls for him to step down as CEO. But he did say that Reddit needs to improve its policies for moderating hate speech. This summer, admins of the site tried to stifle the Trump subreddit’s popularity by changing its algorithm so that it wouldn’t rise to the top or front pages of the site. No matter how small the editing was this time, it was still seemingly a violation of Reddit’s regulations for policing posts and it will remain to be seen how this will affect the company’s popularity.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Monday Jack Dorsey announced that he would be permanently taking over as CEO of Twitter, after serving as interim CEO since July. Clearly juggling chief duties between the massive social media company and fellow tech giant Square proved to be manageable for the formerly ousted co-founder, despite skepticism from critics saying the workload would prove to be too much.

We are naming @adambain COO of Twitter, we’re working to change the composition of our Board, and I will serve as CEO of Twitter and Square!

— Jack (@jack) October 5, 2015

It was clear that the news left investors happy–Twitter’s stock rose 7 percent Monday. But in a tech culture where companies are constantly striving to stay relevant, many of Twitter’s 300 million plus active users are wondering what they can expect from the new CEO. Dorsey wasted no time responding Tuesday, by rolling out a long awaited new feature titled “Moments” on both the desktop site and the mobile app.

Twitter’s new “Moments” feature will help you understand what’s happening in here http://t.co/K9epCT126w pic.twitter.com/AktocHmwq7 — Slate (@Slate) October 6, 2015

Moments attempts to declutter your timeline by aggregating what’s currently unfolding on Twitter into one organized information hub. Users will click on the new lightening bolt icon and be presented with a constantly changing list of headlines or “moments” to follow.

Unlike the current “Trends” section, content under the Moments tab will be “assembled by a curation team” including partners like: Bleacher Report, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Fox News, Getty Images, Mashable, MLB, NASA, New York Times, Vogue, and the Washington Post. This curation concept seems like the next logical step for Twitter, as other social media sites fail to tap into a more organized news section.

It’s unclear whether or not Dorsey has any other new features planned for the beginning of his tenure. However, concerns about his leadership still remain despite the recent uptick in stock prices due to a continuously slowing growth pace for Twitter’s monthly daily users, a.k.a the amount of users who use the site every day each month. Consistently managing both Twitter and Square could prove to be too much of a challenge for Dorsey, but right now he appears to be living in the moment.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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