Huffman said he intended the swap as a joke meant to last only for an hour

His edits made it seem like Trump supporters, not him, were being blamed

Admitted on Reddit last week he had modified posts on pro-Trump board

Steve Huffman said in an interview Friday the editing was 'not a good idea'

Reddit's CEO regrets secretly editing Trump supporters' comments on his own website, in a backfiring bid to give them a taste of the abuse he receives every day.

Steve Huffman, who admitted on Reddit that he had changed the posts, told the Washington Post Friday that the swap was 'not a good idea' and that he had 'abused his power to give bullies a hard time'.

The 33-year-old CEO infuriated Reddit users last week when he confessed to editing comments left on r/the_donald, a popular forum for supporters of President-elect Donald Trump.

Huffman tweaked negative comments directed towards himself and replaced his handle, Spez, with the usernames of moderators from the forum. The manipulation made it look as if users were attacking the pro-Trump moderators instead of Huffman.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (pictured) said in an interview Friday that editing Trump supporters' posts was a bad idea. He meant it as a joke that would last only an hour

The move, according to Huffman, was intended as a joke that would only last one hour. He was hoping to turn the tables on some of the users, who regularly post accusations against him on Reddit's forums.

Huffman's admission came after Reddit banned another discussion board, a conspiracy forum called pizzagate, on which users spread the several-times-debunked claim that some affluent Democrats ran a secret child sex-trafficking ring.

Reddit got rid of the discussion board after users revealed private information of people they believed were linked to the theory, leading to real-life harassment and death threats for some.

Huffman posted on his own website in the wake of the pizzagate ban and faced up to editing the pro-Trump posts on the r/the_donald board.

Huffman admitted on Reddit he had changed comments on a popular pro-Trump board. He made it seem as if attacks against himself were in fact directed at pro-Trump moderators

STEVE HUFFMAN'S POST ADMITTING HE EDITED COMMENTS 'Hey Everyone, 'Yep. I messed with the 'f**k u/spez' comments, replacing 'spez' with r/the_donald mods for about an hour. It's been a long week here trying to unwind the r/pizzagate stuff. As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly. As the CEO, I shouldn't play such games, and it's all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won't do this again.' Source: Reddit Advertisement

'Yep. I messed with the 'f**k u/spez comments, replacing 'spez' with r/the_donald mods for about an hour. It's been a long week here trying to unwind the r/pizzagate stuff,' Huffman wrote.

'As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly. As the CEO, I shouldn't play such games, and it's all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won't do this again.'

Users didn't take kindly to his admission. Several called for Huffman's resignation, which he hasn't commented on so far.

'This is a horrendous violation of ethics for a CEO. Fire yourself,' one wrote.

'Spez must resign immediately if this website wants to save any shred of dignity it has left,' another message stated.

Several users called for Huffman's resignation after his admission, referring to him by his Reddit username, Spez, in furious responses to the CEO's post

One user opposed Huffman and late computer programmer Aaron Swartz, who was involved in the early stages of Reddit's development. Swartz committed suicide in 2013, while facing federal charges after being accused of fraudulently downloading academic articles through MIT's network.

'DRAIN THE REDDIT SWAMP!!! Aaron Swartz would be disgusted by u/spez 's actions, u/spez should be fired immediately for destroying the integrity of this site,' a Reddit user wrote in response to Huffman's admission.

Another user replied that Swartz was 'a legitimate proponent of free speech', who got 'in trouble for trying to download and release massive academic journal databases as he believed it should be accessible to all.'

'What this current CEO is doing is unprofessional,' the user continued. 'If he can't conduct himself with impartiality then he needs to resign.'

Huffman told the Washington Post that his actions might hurt Reddit users' trust in his website. He now intends to fight harder against harassment on the website, having experienced it himself.

'I had my fun with them, they had their fun with me,' Huffman said. 'But we are not going to tolerate harassment for any others.'