Changing other peoples' comments
Starting a war with the 3rd party app devs who made reddit the easily accessible platform it is (browsing reddit on the toilet wasn't nearly as common before the first apps came out, and all of the first ones were 3rd party)
Being a moderator on the jailbait subreddit, a community for sharing sexually suggestive pictures of underage teenage girls
Forcing new moderation teams on communities whose moderation he didn't agree with
Straight up lying about the 3rd party apps and their developers every step of the way

Way to go, Steve Huffman! You had a community of volunteers build your platform for you and now you're taking it all away from them. I'm sure this won't backfire.

[–] zombuey@lemmy.world 72 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I posted this previously elsewhere.

The statement from r/watchredditdie when they closed the sub really put things in perspective for me.

Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian have gone so far as to renege on their promise of listing Aaron Swartz among Reddit, Inc’s founders. Such an egregious breach of contract - only performed once their agreed-upon co-founder no longer walked the earth - could only be carried out by immoral individuals acting in fundamental bad faith. In this way and so many others, Reddit is dead.

[–] wanderingmagus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Never even heard about this. Why haven't they been sued by the surviving family members or some pro-bono representative?

[–] zombuey@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago

I posted this previously elsewhere.

The statement from r/watchredditdie when they closed the sub really put things in perspective for me.

Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian have gone so far as to renege on their promise of listing Aaron Swartz among Reddit, Inc’s founders. Such an egregious breach of contract - only performed once their agreed-upon co-founder no longer walked the earth - could only be carried out by immoral individuals acting in fundamental bad faith. In this way and so many others, Reddit is dead.

[–] kadu@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Is your comment threatening him? Why are you blackmailing him, man? How is he going to work together with you now that you've so aggressively threatened him?

Why is your comment so badly coded? I can't help you optimize your comment, Google didn't help me write mine.

[–] lwaxana_katana@beehaw.org 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow I didn't know he ran r/jailbait. Gross.

[–] democracy1984@lemmy.world 77 points 1 year ago (4 children)

He was forcefully added as a mod on the subreddit. Reddit used to have a system which allowed you to make someone mod without requiring them to accept.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/1477psa/comment/jnuy0xf/

[–] Bowen@lemmy.world 60 points 1 year ago (2 children)

When people add you as a mod, you can still leave. He never did. That subreddit in particular was known to have the blessing of the reddit admins to operate and eventually made 'subreddit of the month'. Then a news org picked up that reddit was hosting this content and then they shut it down.

They were well aware of what was going on. Andrewsmith is right, there is some plausible deniability there, but with the everything else we know about Steve Huffman, I'm not so sure I can agree with his assessment that it was forced upon him.

[–] roboticide@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Andrewsmith is right,

As he often is. That guy knows more about Reddit than Huffman does. Hope he moves to Lemmy.

[–] MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

He let Ghislain Maxwell mod a bunch of subs until she eventually went to jail. It was common knowledge that its was her account but no problem from the pedo reddit admins

[–] STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

It was never proven that the account was hers and it was literally just users automatically claiming that account was Ghislaine Maxwell because that account stopped posting around the same time she got arrested. Nothing bugs me more than that myth being parroted as if it was proven fact.

[–] teamevil@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

U/maxwellhill was a monster‽ Say it isn't so..how could he have known....FUCK spez

[–] kadu@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

While it's certainly better than actively moderating a community...

Is being the admin of a website that actively hosts jailbait and required a massive media outrage to finally remove it that much better? I get free speech and all, but I mean, the subreddit straight up catalogued which pictures were "fap material" and encouraged people (including parents) to take candid photos of the children around them.

A community like that wouldn't last a millisecond in a server I host.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

It's not like it was a small sub either, IIRC. I'm not going to google jailbait to find the stories, but it must've been a few hundred thousand subscribers I think. At a time when the big subs had a few mill at most.

[–] democracy1984@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Even though it was ethically very bad, it was legal. And Reddit had a policy of not removing content, unless it was illegal or doxxing.

The fact is that they wanted to follow the same principles as the government, and allow complete freedom of speech. And if you are following freedom of speech, the ethicality of content is irrelevant.

Reddit never approved of r/jailbait. They simply allowed it.

[–] lwaxana_katana@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago

Ahhh, ty. It did seem even worse than expected for him to have been actively running that sub.

[–] dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Forced promotion

[–] andobando@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

He did not

[–] phillycodehound@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yea this will kill Reddit. Maybe not right away but soon.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, look at what it's taking to kill twitter and influencers are still all over it.

[–] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because it's actually not the same thing, "Twitter" = "influencers". Without celebrities, Twitter simply dies. The same cannot be said about Reddit.

[–] vagabond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

hi, just happened to see you in here lol

[–] dontforgetthat@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Changing other peoples’ comments

Wait the guy changed someone's comment?

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 51 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes. I believe it was people on the donald subreddit, which could be seen as funny, because most sane people (myself included) don't agree with them politically, but it's still a huge misuse of admin powers and proof that he has no integrity. Can't let other peoples' rights be violated if we want to keep our own.

[–] Quizmo@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago

Yeah he changed one comment saying: "Fuck u/spez" by replacing "spez" with one of the r/the_donald mods. This was also done silently so no * to indicate the comment had been edited.

[–] MercuryUprising@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, he got busted for it and wrote a half asked apology claiming he would change. Claimed he was just trolling...

[–] baascus@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fuck u/spez

[–] MrSebSin@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Fuck u/spez

[–] bloodsangre7@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, its even listed on the Wiki page for reddit under 2016 controversies

[–] Photographer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Has it been removed? Seems to jump from him becoming CEO to the banning of loli?

[–] bloodsangre7@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Further down the page under "Other Controversies"

[–] bloodsangre7@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Further down the page under "Other Controversies"

[–] andobando@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Being a moderator on the jailbait subreddit, a community for sharing sexually suggestive pictures of underage teenage girls

This one is a lie, he was added as a moderator by another mod, at a time when anyone could do so. Lets please stop spreading this.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe he did not moderate it actively, but it was allowed to continue and even promoted by reddit until media got a whiff of it.

[–] andobando@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At the time, there was a lot of popular sentiment, on reddit itself, that the internet should be free and it should allowed to continue so long as it was legal.

[–] bulbasaur@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

No one is forcing you to apologize for pedophiles on reddit

[–] Marmie@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

WAIT. Spez was a mod on fucking r/jailbait???? WHAT????

[–] Damaniel@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He actually moderated jailbait? I always assumed he was the type of person to have an alt for it, but to actually use his real account? What a scumbag.

[–] Vividly@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

He was briefly added without his knowledge. He removed himself after he noticed.