Jim Geraghty:
You’re up to speed on Trump tweeting that video that superimposed the CNN logo atop the head of Vince McMahon, in an old appearance during a professional wrestling bout where Trump pretended to beat up McMahon, right?
The cable news network decided to go looking for the person who created that video, and apparently that person is mortified at the thought of their actual identity being exposed:
The Reddit user who initially claimed credit for President Donald Trump’s tweet that showed Trump tackling CNN issued an apology Tuesday for the video and other offensive content he posted — one day after CNN identified the man behind the account and attempted to make contact with him.
Reddit user “HanA**holeSolo” first shared the GIF last Wednesday of Trump pummeling a wrestler with CNN’s logo imposed on his face. CNN could find no earlier instance of the GIF. The GIF was later edited into a video with sound and tweeted by the President on Sunday.
On Reddit, “HanA**holeSolo” took credit for inspiring the tweet. Soon after, “HanA**holeSolo’s” other posts on Reddit, some of which included racist and anti-Semitic imagery, quickly circulated on social media.
Now the user is apologizing, writing in a lengthy post on Reddit that he does not advocate violence against the press and expressing remorse there and in an interview with CNN for other posts he made that were racist and anti-Semitic.
The apology came after CNN’s KFile identified the man behind “HanA**holeSolo.” Using identifying information that “HanA**holeSolo” posted on Reddit, KFile was able to determine key biographical details, to find the man’s name using a Facebook search and ultimately corroborate details he had made available on Reddit.
On Monday, KFile attempted to contact the man by email and phone but he did not respond. On Tuesday, “HanA**holeSolo” posted his apology on the subreddit /The_Donald and deleted all of his other posts.
Welcome to what could turn into one of the biggest debates of the Trump era: does an anonymous online troll have the right to remain an anonymous online troll?
A morning Tweet from CNN anchor Christopher Cuomo – quickly deleted – feels more than a little menacing: “Should CNN reveal name of Reddit user who made trump wrestling video? Had a lot of bigoted and hateful material on page and website.” Nice life you’ve got there, fella, shame if something happened to it.
A little while back, after Trump wrote a Tweet that suggested he may have taped his conversations in the White House with former FBI Director James Comey, I argued that Trump’s implied threat was against his own interests. The whole point of “executive privilege” was that the president needed and deserved the most honest, unvarnished advice possible, and ensuring those sorts of honest exchanges meant they had to be kept secret. “Sometimes the right course of action is not the popular one; those who speak to the president may not want their actual perspective revealed to the public.”
Quite a few Trump fans – including those tweeting under pseudonyms! — insisted there was something inherently dishonest about having different public and private positions. I suspect many of those same people will denounce CNN today without recognizing any contradiction in their positions. (I also wonder how many people denouncing CNN today cheered on WikiLeaks after it posted the private e-mails of John Podesta.)
Should the press respect the anonymity of online commenters? I suspect Silence Dogood would argue yes. I’ll bet Richard Bachman could write a terrifying story about a television network dedicating itself to exposing the worst side of you. I wonder if Joe Klein will cheer for CNN in this circumstance.
This certainly looks like major news network utilizing its considerable resources to expose one of its online critics, a rather petty use of those resources.
CNN & Wikileaks is apples & oranges here.
CNN will never publicly reveal the identity of that Reddit user.
And, to be fair, Wikileaks never gave Podesta a chance to alter all of his entire internet POV or else they would release his emails.
Wikileaks simply released them all for public consumption.
Reddit had most, or all, of the CNN meme creator’s POV online, so we all knew how he felt.
There was nothing left to hide, other than his identity.
How open he is/was about his POV in his off-web life before the Trump tweet is irrelevant to me and others.
Podesta’s smarminess was well known long before we read his emails.
OOPS!
It turns out that CNN has targeted the wrong person!
A senior Trump administration official said that the video was not pulled from Reddit.
It turns out that CNN has targeted the wrong person!
What Trump tweeted wasn’t actually HanA**holeSolo’s GIF.”
Trump’s gif included both video and audio – whereas the Rebel smuggler wannabe’s gif did not include audio.
Furthermore, the original HanA**holeSolo gif “was shorter, had a different aspect ratio, and had a WWE logo in the corner…
Not even the colors are processed in the same manner…
It turns out that CNN has targeted the wrong person!
@Nanny G: Add in them getting busted for a fake Abraham Lincoln quote yesterday and O’Keefe’s latest undercover video where Carr doubles down on his, “Americans are stupid as shit” comment and then trashes his own “reporter”, Chris Cuomo, and CNN is having another terrible day. And their threat may have very well broken the law on top of it.
one has to analyses the behavior disorder of cnn to grasp the matrix of its political rant. the media suffers from an oppositional-defiant disorder characterized by:
Poor school and work performance
Antisocial behavior
Impulse control problems
Substance use disorder
if one reviews the history of the governing board and senior editorial staff this disorder will become vary apparent.
the antisocial rage by ccn is classic for oppositional-defiant disorder-there is no cure.
I would like to see this “apology” and have it verified. Nothing CNN says should be accepted at face value.
Spoiled liberal brats.
I don’t believe there’s any real equivalency between the avalanche of demonstrable lies continuously injected and perpetuated by the alt-right media, and CNN getting an occasional report wrong and then retracting the story.
@Greg:
Of course you dont, they were the ones that gave HRC the debate questions in advance. Asked the DNC what questions should b asked at the Republican debates. That makes them the good guys …right?
But thats off topic as you normally are.
The good guys don’t always win. Federal ethics chief who clashed with White House announces he will step down
Don’t hold your breath waiting for this guy to be replaced. Of the 554 unfilled government positions requiring confirmation, 374 don’t even have a nominee. And this particular job is all about assuring the adherence to high ethical standards in government.
@Greg: #8 He was a useless parasite of tax dollars, has done nothing in his term
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/19/judge-orders-doj-lawyers-remedial-ethics-classe
But he bitched about Trump!
He can add this line to his resume : “References: none. I’ve left a path of destruction behind me.”
The libs will miss his nothingness.
Another random Greg brainfart that is off topic., Its about CNN threatening someone that sent them a funny meme on frigging dying bird twitter. They should be banned for breaking twitter rules.