In perhaps the most poignant and powerful condemnation yet, posters on Reddit’s forums for survivors of child abuse are calling for the resignation of the company’s CEO Steve Huffman.

As well as controversial political forums, Reddit hosts a number of innocent, non-political communities. One set of little known forums includes the subreddits for survivors of abuse called /r/adultsurvivors, /r/rapecounseling and /r/survivorsofabuse. Last night a user called CASSeeBurn (Cassie) posted to each of them [1] (archive) [2] [3], explaining she was using a burner account to escape reprisals.

Chillingly, members of Reddit’s sinister paedophile forums soon arrived to lobby for the post’s removal. Shamefully, the moderators of /r/rapecounseling and /r/survivorsofabuse complied. However, the post survived in /r/adultsurvivors and has been archived. A similar post in /r/The_Donald was treated with respect and kindness by posters there.

According to her post, Cassie’s use of Reddit was not concerned with politics. She was not a soldier in the electoral conflict. Cassie used Reddit as a safe space, to heal. When she first read posts by users of /r/The_Donald claiming that executives were knowingly allowing paedophiles to operate forums on the site she did not believe it. The pull of the awful allegations, however, drove her to investigate. Horrifyingly, it was true. /r/Pedofriends, /r/Pedochat and /r/Pedo101 were there for all to see.

Cassie even seems to have read my previous article in which I confirmed that Reddit executives including their General Counsel were on notice of the existence of the forums and some of the contents. In her post, the user claims that the revelation of the horrific content in what she thought was a safe space brought her to tears and led to nightmares of rape haunted by Reddit CEO Steve Huffman and a ‘creepy french dude’ (likely a reference to Reddit Director of Community Philippe Beaudette).

Users of the survivor subreddits were quick to offer support, as were caring members of /r/The_Donald.

Another user posted using an account name suggesting that they also felt metaphorically raped by Steve Huffman –

It is worth reminding readers that text discussion of paedophilia, even when graphically sexual, is not necessarily illegal in the US or UK. This is the case even when posters claim to work with children, such as the female teacher whose post I included as evidence in my last article.

However, it is clear that most reputable companies would seek to steer clear of such material. It is also clear that members of /r/Pedofriends lobby outside the subreddit trying to have posts exposing or criticising them removed. Several even contacted this blog trying to pressure me after my last article.

In the past, Reddit was willing to host controversial forums such as /r/Coontown and /r/FatPeopleHate until there was media attention. Now, in a chilling double standard Reddit is willing to go to the wire for the paedophiles (or as they euphemistically call themselves, Minor-Attracted-Persons ‘MAP’).

The utter moral bankruptcy and lack of commercial judgement shown by Reddit’s leadership could not be clearer. Reddit is picking a fight with one of its largest communities, /r/The_Donald – an incredibly active forum of three hundred thousand users.

Worse than Reddit fighting a huge section of its user base, that fight is being conducted on swampy ground and from inside a glass house – Steve Huffman has pilloried supporters of /r/The_Donald when paedophiles are posting about children, (including clothed pictures of children with adults) in public on the website he leads.

It is worth remembering of course that Reddit’s amoral attitude to paedophilia content does not mean that CEO Steve Huffman, General Counsel Melissa Tidwell or Director of Community Philippe Beaudette are paedophiles. It just means that they are unwilling to condemn and exclude the paedophiles on their website.

If anyone disagrees and would like to politely remonstrate with them about this, their email addresses are –

steve@reddit.com

melissa.tidwell@reddit.com

philippe.beaudette@reddit.com

– readers are asked to please not be abusive or disrespectful in any email they send.

On purely commercial grounds, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman should step down. History shows that users of /r/The_Donald as well as former members of banned subreddits will not be slow to make their case aggressively to Reddit investors and advertisers. Matthew Hopkins News wishes Reddit critics well in their endeavours.