I thought this was an AWESOME article, and I'm a little ashamed it took me almost a week to hear about it (then again, I never go to Gawker). Long and short of it: one of Reddit's most notorious trolls, Violentacrez, had his identity outed with a bit of amateur sleuthing (according to the article, the author was told his real name by someone the guy knew, then listened to voice recordings from Reddit and the person by the name IRL, and finally just up and asked him). Since the posting of the article on the 12th, the guy has lost his job and Reddit seems up in arms, with a fierce pro-freedom of speech versus anti-pedophilia war going on. Some choice quotes from the article (which is here if you want to read it: http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web )
Quote:
I first became aware of Violentacrez last year, when controversy erupted over a section, called "Jailbait," that Violentacrez had created on Reddit dedicated to sexualized images of underaged girls.
Unlike Jailbait, which apparently sprung from a sincere interest, many of Violentacrez's most offensive subreddits were created just to enrage other Reddit users.
Some of the sections Violentacrez created or moderated were called:
Chokeabitch
@#%^jailbait
Rapebait
Hitler
Jewmerica
Misogyny
Incest
I asked if he regretted anything he had posted, now that he'd be found out. No, he said. "I would stand by exactly what I've done."
In 2010, Violentacrez hosted a legendary "Ask Me Anything" thread"—the same Q & A feature Barack Obama took part in last month. He was asked what was the creepiest thing he'd done "IRL" and delighted readers with a tale ripped out of Penthouse letters. "That'd be a tough call," Violentacrez wrote, "Perhaps oral sex with my 19-year-old stepdaughter." It was completely consensual, he claimed in the post, and went on to brag about how awesome it had been in graphic detail.
This happened over ten years ago, Violentacrez claimed. When his then-wife, the girl's mother, found out, she "got mad, then got over it," Violentacrez wrote. He says they were married for ten more years.
I asked if everything he and his son had said in their AMAs were real. As far as he could remember, he said, it was.
Both offline and online he could be either a creepy uncle, or a loyal friend and helpful guide. Violentacrez had a surprising number of friends on Reddit, for someone who once created an entire subreddit dedicated to pictures of dead teenage girls (Picsofdeadjailbait). He helped organize IRL meet-ups, where he showed up in a t-shirt with his zombie logo on it, and told everyone there to call him "VA." Attendees agreed to blur his face in any resulting pictures before posting them to Reddit. Brutsch is an internet minister, and he said he once married a pair of Redditors in real life, though they only knew him by his "clean" handle: mbrutsch.
One longtime Redditor I spoke to talked about Violentacrez with the warmth of an old college friend.
"He's a really a good guy," she said. This user was in the Arlington area for business once, and she stopped by Brutsch's house for lunch. "He has the manners of a Southern gentleman," she said. "A bunch of neighborhood kids were over playing at his house."
Unlike Jailbait, which apparently sprung from a sincere interest, many of Violentacrez's most offensive subreddits were created just to enrage other Reddit users.
Some of the sections Violentacrez created or moderated were called:
Chokeabitch
@#%^jailbait
Rapebait
Hitler
Jewmerica
Misogyny
Incest
I asked if he regretted anything he had posted, now that he'd be found out. No, he said. "I would stand by exactly what I've done."
In 2010, Violentacrez hosted a legendary "Ask Me Anything" thread"—the same Q & A feature Barack Obama took part in last month. He was asked what was the creepiest thing he'd done "IRL" and delighted readers with a tale ripped out of Penthouse letters. "That'd be a tough call," Violentacrez wrote, "Perhaps oral sex with my 19-year-old stepdaughter." It was completely consensual, he claimed in the post, and went on to brag about how awesome it had been in graphic detail.
This happened over ten years ago, Violentacrez claimed. When his then-wife, the girl's mother, found out, she "got mad, then got over it," Violentacrez wrote. He says they were married for ten more years.
I asked if everything he and his son had said in their AMAs were real. As far as he could remember, he said, it was.
Both offline and online he could be either a creepy uncle, or a loyal friend and helpful guide. Violentacrez had a surprising number of friends on Reddit, for someone who once created an entire subreddit dedicated to pictures of dead teenage girls (Picsofdeadjailbait). He helped organize IRL meet-ups, where he showed up in a t-shirt with his zombie logo on it, and told everyone there to call him "VA." Attendees agreed to blur his face in any resulting pictures before posting them to Reddit. Brutsch is an internet minister, and he said he once married a pair of Redditors in real life, though they only knew him by his "clean" handle: mbrutsch.
One longtime Redditor I spoke to talked about Violentacrez with the warmth of an old college friend.
"He's a really a good guy," she said. This user was in the Arlington area for business once, and she stopped by Brutsch's house for lunch. "He has the manners of a Southern gentleman," she said. "A bunch of neighborhood kids were over playing at his house."
Anyway, it brings up a good point about how fleeting anonymity can be. You probably don't want to take your privacy for granted... and if you troll people, you might want to think twice about if you'd be comfortable with it coming out in real life!
Edit: And for the sake of discussion, what do people think of this? Should the guy have expected to remain anonymous? Is his freedom of speech impinged if he lost his job as a result of his outing?
Edited, Oct 19th 2012 11:51am by LockeColeMA
Nor do I see anything wrong with him being ousted. His identity was obtained through completely valid/legal means. It'll be a shame if he loses his job because of it, but it's something he should have expected to happen should he ever get ousted. 
