That's very childish and lame for Steve Huffman to say "Ellen wasn't the first Reddit engineer, so she probably lacked the expertise to do it, and even if she did, she was smart enough to not".
I think this guy needs to grow up.
I think this guy needs to grow up.
Basically, by not firing him, the board is sending a message. It is saying that 1. The platform and it's comments cannot be trusted. and 2. That it's ok for employees to surreptitiously edit comments. If the CEO did it and didn't get fired, then how could they fire a lower level employee for doing it?
The CEO has set the standard through his own behaviour. And that is now the culture of reddit. By not dismissing the CEO, the board has sent the message that they accept this behaviour.