Over the weekend, Gawker exposed the identity of one of the more infamous users on Reddit, Michael Brutsch, aka Violentacrez. Violentacrez, a 49-year-old programmer, earned a name for himself as a kind of one-man goatse-posting creeper juggernaut, moderating subforums dedicated to clothed-but-risque pictures of underage girls, bragging about having sex with his 19-year-old stepdaughter, and generally trying to get up those nose of anybody on Reddit with any sort of sensitivity about any topic. In other words, he acted a like a perv and a troll.
A shitstorm has apparently erupted at Reddit about it. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t frequented it much in the past, and I haven’t bothered checking out any of the local discussion about it. However, second-hand accounts seem to indicate that the community has a very laissez faire attitude regarding not explicitly illegal content, absolutely detests censorship, and is dedicated to protecting the anonymity of its users.
All of those are good things, IMHO. Reminds me of usenet back in the day. Right on.
However: The guy is definitely a creep. He went out of his way to be as offensive as possible, but he didn’t exactly go out of his way to protect his identity while doing it - he’d attended various Reddit gatherings over the year in person, proudly proclaiming his handle, and went so far as allowing himself to be photographed. By distributing the underage photos for himself and his fellow travels to slobber over, he was at least an accessory to violating the privacy of thousands of teenagers.
He obviously enjoyed the notoriety. As a grown-ass man, he should know better. Sucks to be him.
He’s old enough to learn that actions have consequences. Also, if what he says is true, he had oral sex with his 19 year old stepdaughter and bragged about it on the internet. While it may not legally be rape, the power differential makes it morally equivalent to rape. Deliberately swapping sexy pics of underage girls - requiring the source to prove the girls were truly underage? Posting pictures of dead teenagers? Yeah, fuck that guy.
This ‘‘free speech’’ bullshit excuse is bullshit. Only a reprehensible person would do the things he did.
Can’t say it much better than that. Besides which, isn’t the whole justification for posting all of those creepy upskirt photos something to the effect of, “People have no expectation of privacy when they’re in a public place”? Well, maybe this troll should have realized that he couldn’t rely on privacy or anonymity protecting his public actions.
If you could conceivably be fired from your job for posting something to the Internet under your real name, I don’t have sympathy for you if you post it anyway under an anonymous handle and then get found out.
Didn’t know anything about it until now,and then I ran across the creepiest activity the guy was involved with in the second link: He worked for a payday loan company.
He works for a payday loan company? Double fuck that guy.
Am I understanding it correctly that, because they value the right of Violentacrez to have free speech, they are censoring Gawker articles about him? :smack:
While I’m for allowing individual users to select their level of anonymity, I don’t think anyone else has an obligation to respect your anonymity on the internet. If you want to make waves but not get found out, you better be sure your tracks are covered. If you piss someone off enough that they can find you, that’s on you.
Reddit’s desire to censor information about this guy to protect him is weaksauce. If you’re going to allow entirely free expression, which I laud in most cases, it cuts all ways.
What I find perhaps most irksome about this situation is the fervent way so many Redditers are defending this guy. I’ve long contended that Reddit was a scummy place and while it did have some good aspects, there was far too much downright awful to ignore. So, now, we have a bunch of otherwise sane Redditers (folks who never poked around his subReddits) defending this disgusting prick. Frankly, I’m side eyeing several of my friends right now for this very reason.
Horrifyingly, this douche has a Paypal up. . . and people are actually contributing to it. Keep it classy, Reddit.:rolleyes:
There is no such thing as anonymity on the internet. Everything you say can and will be used against you. Proceed accordingly. If you think your boss would fire you if he found out that you liked to share pictures of dead underage girls, then do not share pictures of dead underage girls on the internet.
Oh my gosh, are you guys all serious?? Sure, he posted reprehensible stuff, but reddit didn’t ban him, didn’t remove his stuff, didn’t prohibit it. Like it or not, he was following the rules of his message board. If you don’t like it, don’t go to reddit and read it. No one’s plastering it in front of your face.
The idea of ruining someone’s life just because you disagree with them on the internet is reprehensible. I’m pretty sure that I’ve said things online I wouldn’t want printed out and mailed to my boss, and I’m guessing most people here would feel the same, whether it’s a political argument or just blowing off steam.
The logical part of my brain says: It’s bad to out people online.
The emotional part of my brain says: Karma’s a bitch, creeper!
If he was just expressing an unpopular opinion like some people I know who have been outed online I’d be on his side. But he went dangerously close to the statutory rape line, especially with someone he was in a position of power over.
I don’t give a flying fuck about Reddit, never been there, and now most definitely never will. The fact that he followed the rules doesn’t make him any less of a scumbag. Just because you can legally do something doesn’t mean you’re not an asshole for doing it. It also doesn’t mean there will be no consequences for your actions.
The rules of his message board are bullshit, since they apparently allow people to post upskirt photos of underaged girls without the girls’ consent. And actually I won’t go to reddit and read it, thanks for the suggestion. But I’m still 100% cool with this asshole facing consequences for his actions.
Ahh, so the Gawker journalist **made up **all those things that VA supposedly did?
Because if not, then I fail to see how the journalist “ruined his life.” He simply made the guy’s life choices public (as the guy did to quite a lot of other people in bad situations - like dead girls, creeper shots, girls with unfortunate Fb pictures etc) and let those public consequences sort themselves out. Presumably a 49 year old with a disabled wife and two kids can be trusted to make life decisions that are in their own good, no?
I hate that most of the reddit community can’t see that the guy got karma. He was a longstanding redditor and subreddit mod ferchristsakes - he ***knows ***there are people out there who can dox like a motherfucker. If he wasn’t careful enough to sufficiently cover his (admittedly trolling and inflammatory) tracks, then it sucks to be his ass when the shit gets real.
If you don’t want it to bite you in the ass, DON’T POST IT.
Anonymity is great and all, but you can’t guarantee it will hold up to determined people.
