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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Technology
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But as the text says, this extortion began 5 days before the API changes were even announced. These criminals don't give a f*ck about the API and threaten to leak the data of those same users they're claiming to protect.
I think we should just ignore this, because it's a distraction for public pressure and will only make Reddit look better - either by delegitimising the protest or by making them look like a victim instead of the perpetrator they are.
I'm going to say what you did, more diplomatically:
While I don't condone extortion via hacking or any other means, I acknowledge that Reddit and its' dysfunctional, incompetent corporate culture - with Huffman at the top - brought this development upon themselves.
But when that spanking both threatens the very users they're claiming to fight for, and threatens to delegitimise all of those user's and moderator's protest efforts by giving Reddit a victimhood, I think it is downright stupid to cheer that on
Karma IS a bitch, but I for one am still not going to stand behind illegalities like this. It's not the way.
As I said before, these hackers don't care. The grandstanding is their way of getting attention off the backs of the protests. All supporting these criminals does is delegitimise the real protest by making Reddit look like the victim.
That aside, even from a practical standpoint this wouldn't work longterm. If extorted into backpeddalling, Reddit will just quietly up their data security, and once they've made sure the threat of a leak is dealt with, they'll go right on back to the API change.