Notorious smut peddler, “Violentacrez”, gave his first Interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper last night. After being outed by Gawker last week, the 49-year-old softspoken software engineer has lost his job and rekindled a fierce debate over the limits of free speech. “I am to some degree apologizing for what I did,” said Michael Brutsch, “Violentacrez is what I did in my spare time to unwind from my 10-hour-a-day job. That’s how I relaxed in the evening. I no longer need to relax in the evening, because I no longer have a job.”
Brutsch came to notoriety by posting racist and misogynistic photos to the popular content aggregator, Reddit, including one forum of underage girls, dubbed “jailbait”. He was the creator and main contributor to some of Reddit’s most disgusting subreddits including, but definitely not limited to: /r/chokeabitch, /r/rapebait, /r/hitler, /r/jewmeric, and /r/incest.
Despite the outcry against trolls like Brutsch, Reddit defends the strict free speech policies of the user-generated portions of the site (“subreddits”). “We stand for free speech … We are not going to ban distasteful subreddits,” said CEO Yishan Wong.
Launched in 2005, Reddit is a social news website that displays news based on your personal preferences and what the community likes. Your preferences are determined based on your history of voting stories up or down. The company was started by two University of Virginia grads, Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman in the Y Combinator program. Two others, Christopher Slowe and Aaron Swartz, later joined the team. Conde Nast, owner of Wired and other magazines/websites, acquired Reddit in October of 2006....
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