A new Trump/CNN gif/video hit the internet early this morning. This one just three days after Donald Trump’s controversial original tweet, which took a Reddit user’s gif, and made it look like he was attacking CNN.
How did we get here?
The whole thing started with Trump’s tweet, which many thought was funny and many thought was inappropriate.
Then, news began to leak about the original creator of the content, Reddit-user HanAssholeSolo. It turns out the user was responsible for some racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic posts in the past, according to The Guardian. The user wrote an apology on Reddit on Tuesday and claims he was just “trolling” people on the internet. His statement is below:
First of all, I would like to apologize to the members of the reddit community for getting this site and this sub embroiled in a controversy that should never have happened,” he wrote. “I would also like to apologize for the posts made that were racist, bigoted, and anti-semitic. I am in no way this kind of person, I love and accept people of all walks of life and have done so for my entire life. I am not the person that the media portrays me to be in real life, I was trolling and posting things to get a reaction from the subs on reddit and never meant any of the hateful things I said in those posts. I would never support any kind of violence or actions against others simply for what they believe in, their religion, or the lifestyle they choose to have. Nor would I carry out any violence against anyone based upon that or support anyone who did.
Later Tuesday, people began to question CNN’s methods for tracking down the person behind the Reddit posts.
Here is the statement that started the “blackmail” talk:
CNN is not publishing ‘HanA**holeSolo’s name because he is a private citizen, who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again…CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.
Reactions were strong to the final line of the statement, and people began to question CNN’s methods and the hashtag #CNNBlackMail was born.
CNN has defended its handling of the story, and issued a statement Wednesday saying the network did not publish the user’s name out of concern for his safety, according to FoxNews.
Senior editor and founding member of CNN’s KFile investigative team Andrew Kaczynski also took to Twitter to defend his companies’ work.