Before this week, I was fairly unfamiliar to the popular website Reddit and its intricacies, having only visited the site a handful of times and never creating my own account. My prior knowledge of the self-proclaimed “front page of the Internet” only went so far as the “funny” Sub-Reddit, where a collection of cat memes, .gifs and other entertaining photos posted by users can be found. What I didn’t realize was that I was barely scratching the surface of what the social news website held.
On Friday, Gawker writer Adrian Chen opened the eyes to those unfamiliar, like myself, to the very dark side of Reddit and the people behind it. With Sub-Reddits named “incest,” “misogyny,” “jewmerica” and other much more horrible and offensive titles that I’d much rather not repeat. It’s clear the site has given an outlet for people who have much darker interests than funny memes. What is even more disturbing is that these topics are not hidden away on the site, viewed by only a small number of users, but instead bring some of the highest amount of traffic to the website. Maybe it was naive of me to believe these topics didn’t hold a place on the site, but I thought this kind of filth was only saved for the darkest corners of the Internet.
The issues behind the site were not brought to light because of the Sub-Reddits that I previously mentioned though, but mostly because of one discomforting topic in particular called “creepshots.” In this specific portion of the site, users posted pictures of sexually suggestive pictures of woman taken without their knowledge by stalking them. Violentacrez, a Reddit member behind the moderation, creation and infamy of many of the worst sections of the website, also was one of those involved in the creepshots Sub-Reddit.
Obviously when creating the type of Internet footprint that one does when posting and supporting topics such as the ones Violentacrez, or Michael Brutsch as identified by Chen in his article, has, keeping a concealed identity from the outside world is usually of high importance. Unfortunately for him, this Walter White-esque double life he has been leading (a 49-year-old Texan working for a financial services company by day, Internet pervert by night), was torn down by the article published last week. So did Adrian Chen and Gawker have the right to infringe on the privacy of Brutsch in order to unmask the man polluting the Internet community with his unsavory interests? According to the Reddit community, the answer is no.
While officials of the website have not spoken out about the issue since they banned the creepshots Sub-Reddit early last week, a large population of the websites members have. Besides the recently adopted policy not to allow sexually suggestive content featuring minors, there is a lack of any substantial rules regarding what can and cannot be posted to the website. The one rule that is in place, though, and is considered to be the websites most important policy, is that the rights of Reddit users may not be infringed upon. By publishing an article ousting a Reddit member for his indecent Internet behavior, Gawker has ignited the member population to speak out against and ban any of the blog’s content from being posted on Reddit.
It is understandable for Redditors to express their anger over the infringement of a user’s Internet privacy, but are they not concerned about the privacy of the woman, and even young girls, found in the creepshots section of the website? It seems to me that Reddit officials should be just as, if not more, concerned with the actions of their users, instead of worrying solely about the protection of their privacy.
Though a proponent of privacy for everybody, I am not for allowing actions such as Brutsch’s to go without consequences or allowing him to continue to hide behind his Violentacrez Internet mask any longer.
