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Reddit CEO admits to altering user comments that were critical of him

(www.reddit.com)
668 points wildmusings | 12 comments | 24 Nov 16 00:50 UTC | HN request time: 1.38s | source | bottom
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ww520 ◴[24 Nov 16 01:17 UTC] No.13027156[source]▶
This is pretty bad. That pretty much destroys the credibility of Reddit's commenting system in a single act. No one can look at the integrity of the comments written by others the same any more.
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1. eridius ◴[24 Nov 16 03:14 UTC] No.13027728[source]▶
Did anybody seriously think that reddit admins didn't have the power to do this all along? They can go edit the database directly if they want.
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2. rfrank ◴[24 Nov 16 03:25 UTC] No.13027773[source]▶
Potential vs. proof. That is a large distinction.
3. wildmusings ◴[24 Nov 16 04:50 UTC] No.13028204[source]▶
People have the power to do a lot of things. You have the power to quite easily lie, cheat, and steal in this world. When you run a website, like when you run a business, you have to convince your customers/users to trust you not to do those things.
4. cargo8 ◴[24 Nov 16 05:36 UTC] No.13028412[source]▶
Technically, sure.

But, usually a company of this size/scale puts in place restrictions so that accessing privileged abilities like this is extremely difficult and requires authorizations / clearances / permissions from users, etc.

Generally big / public tech company employees are not even allowed to LOOK at PII or the data of a specific user name etc. You run all tests on staging / fake populated DBs only, etc.

replies(1): >>13028420 #
5. eridius ◴[24 Nov 16 05:38 UTC] No.13028420[source]▶
Reddit's not that large, and the admin in question is the CEO.
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6. adamrezich ◴[24 Nov 16 05:41 UTC] No.13028434{3}[source]▶
Reddit is one of the largest and most influential community websites on the Internet (#25-29ish).
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7. grzm ◴[24 Nov 16 05:48 UTC] No.13028457{4}[source]▶
One of the largest, sure. How are you measuring "most influential"?
8. cargo8 ◴[24 Nov 16 05:50 UTC] No.13028466{3}[source]▶
CEOs don't get to break the rules just because. These kinds of restrictions exist to protect consumers (and their data) and the business legally from liability, etc.
replies(1): >>13028885 #
9. stickfigure ◴[24 Nov 16 05:52 UTC] No.13028476{4}[source]▶
So's 4chan...
10. eridius ◴[24 Nov 16 06:28 UTC] No.13028614{4}[source]▶
Large in terms of company size, not in terms of internet reach.
11. Senji ◴[24 Nov 16 07:42 UTC] No.13028885{4}[source]▶
Yes, yes they do.
12. mzw_mzw ◴[24 Nov 16 21:02 UTC] No.13032741[source]▶
It's not that people didn't know the admins have the power; it's that people didn't believe they'd use the power.

Your local police or military could just barge into your house and kill you at any time. They have the power to do that. Society functions to the extent that you don't believe they will do that. If you found out one day that your local police chief had, under cover of law, busted into someone's house and waved a gun at them over a petty personal dispute, though, your faith would be a little shaken.