Interview With Reddit Troll, 'Violentacrez' (video)

http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/19/interview-with-reddit-troll-violentacrez-on-anderson-cooper-video/

by mikek • 14 years ago

22 30 14 years ago

freeslave2• 14 years ago

this whole thing has really turned me off reddit. i blocked it in my /etc/hosts and my productivity has gone way up. also, makes me appreciate the efforts of HN to keep things civil and intelligent - even if it means a lot of my posts and comments go nowhere.

jimmybrite• 14 years ago

Doxxing him and ruining his life was okay then? Even though he didn't post or created those creepy subreddits which you have the liberty NOT to go to?

freeslave2• 14 years ago

he ruined his own life.

bmm6o2• 14 years ago

> Doxxing him and ruining his life was okay then?

False dichotomy, one can think they are both bad.

icebraining• 14 years ago

Even though he didn't post or created those creepy subreddits

What? VA certainly did create a lot of them (e.g. /r/PicsOfDeadJailbait) and he moderated and posted on most.

(This is not a post pro or against the recent events)

Legion• 14 years ago

> this whole thing has really turned me off reddit.

To me, that's like saying, "that dirty alt.binaries.whatever group really turned me off USENET."

The reddit I visit doesn't have any violentacrez. Nor does the reddit my wife visits. The thing reddit gets right is the ability to customize and narrowly define what content you get fed. Mine looks like a more scattered HN. My wife's looks like a text-based Pinterest.

MrMember• 14 years ago

Exactly right. Unsubscribe from all of the default subs, then find specific subs for your interests and subscribe to them.

bmm6o2• 14 years ago

That is the difference between a protocol and a site/platform. As an operator, you could choose not to carry news groups that you find objectionable. Or you can choose not to visit websites you don't want to support. Reddit is too monolithic for that. It's true that you can not see it our pretend it's not there, but one of the few ways to promote change is to not visit the site at all.

sergiotapia• 14 years ago

On the one hand I feel bad for his wife, she's suffering over something she had nothing to do with. Her husband lost his job and now she has no health care insurance.

On the other hand, this guy was posting a TON of offensive, downright disgusting content. He was stupid enough to share his personal information with someone online, that's his fault.

Doing stupid shit online + sharing who you are in real life (even to a single person) = you're going to have a bad time.

w1ntermute• 14 years ago

> now she has no health care insurance.

More than anything else, this is yet another condemnation of the American health care system.

ericclemmons• 14 years ago

Joining healthcare to a single place of employment was a mistake from the very beginning. Luckily, health care is comparable when purchased separately, depending on obvious factors.

taytus• 14 years ago

I'm not blaming Reddit for what this guy posted, but the truth is that Reddit encouraged this kind of posts (they gave him an award!). Let's see how this affect reddit in the future.

swordswinger12• 14 years ago

The awards were based on community voting, Reddit had no control over who won.

themstheones• 14 years ago

But Reddit is more about the community than the organization that runs it.

aes2564• 14 years ago

Beyond /r/jailbait being voted subreddit of the year, and violentacrez moderator of the year, violentacrez was an important factor in Reddit's rise to prominence.

He drove a huge amount of traffic to the site in the early days with his porn subreddits.

naner2• 14 years ago

It seems like he is only remorseful because he got caught. And as Cooper pointed out: he only mentions the negative impact on himself and his family (what about the girls whose photos he posted?) and tries to shift most of the responsibility to Reddit.

aes2564• 14 years ago

It's a weird fall from grace for violentacrez.

Redditors, in general, loved what he did. His subreddits were hugely popular; /r/jailbait was once voted subreddit of the year by the community, and he himself was once moderator of the year.

Now he has been unmasked he is facing the wrath of the wider population, which doesn't 'get' Internet humor, the tongue-in-cheek nature of trolling, will never admit to finding teenagers attractive, etc. Meanwhile, in distancing themselves from him, the Reddit staff have thrown him under the bus.

You can see why it's tricky for him. Part of me thinks he doesn't really have anything to apologize for.

naner2• 14 years ago

The demographic of Reddit that enjoyed what he did (or at least thought is was funny or exercising "free speech") has been consistenly getting smaller and less influential as Reddit has gained more mainstream popularity.

Reddit's employees never really loved the guy (AFAICT) but they tolerated him because he moderated and kept illegal content out of his subreddits and they sure as hell didn't want to touch any of that stuff.

Violentacrez turned on Reddit as soon as he was outed, looking for any scapegoat to take some of the pressure off of himself. All things considered, I'm not suprised that Reddit is not backing him up.

nicholas_tuzzio2• 14 years ago

I really wish people would stop posting about this most recent bout of reddit drama on HN. Are people not noticing that every article so far has been deleted?

meritt• 14 years ago

Huh. I didn't view this as a Reddit vs. HN elitism post. I viewed it as a solid example of the inherent problems with balancing anonymity, legality of content and freedom of speech on a user-generated website.

nicholas_tuzzio2• 14 years ago

I'm a really big fan of reddit in some ways and I have been following this drama very closely. I just don't think it's appropriate for HN.

heed• 14 years ago

Why would this man agree to interviewed? Does he like the attention? Does he actually regret his actions? Does he like when others think of him in disgust? His intentions here are suspect to me. Possibly one more troll?

aes2564• 14 years ago

It's good PR for him, a chance to humanize himself, to explain his actions, and to appear somewhat remorseful.

He's not some vile monster, he's just a regular family man who enjoyed a bit of Internet trolling in his spare time. He didn't do anything illegal, and throughout his time on Reddit he was being cheered on by a broadly supportive community.

koeselitz• 14 years ago

And he instantly regrets it:

"CNN was a huge mistake, which I will not repeat." http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/11pka1/violentacrez_on...

wilco0925• 14 years ago

"He has a gift for pushing buddons"

Interview With Reddit Troll, 'Violentacrez' (video)

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