CNN found the Reddit user behind the Trump wrestling GIF

I really, really don't like that one of the largest news organizations in America is blackmailing/powertripping like this.

> On Monday, KFile attempted to contact the man by email and phone but he did not respond. On Tuesday, "HanAholeSolo" posted his apology on the subreddit /The_Donald and deleted all of his other posts.

By CNN's account, the user deleted his posts and issued an apology before actually speaking with CNN (who reached him apparently afterwards). It's possible the initial contact email contained a threat but that's doubtful. CNN would get more page views by coercing the man into an interview than it would by telling him to shut everything down.

Now, the statement that CNN reserves the right to publish the man's identity if he decides to renege on his policy might be seen as a threat of sorts, but that doesn't read as blackmail. Keep in mind that CNN is probably within its rights to publish the man's identity if they felt like it, because under defamation law, the man would qualify as a limited-purpose public figure for not just making the GIF, but claiming credit for it publicly.

http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/limited-purpose-pub...

Edit: again, this is all predicated on taking CNN's account at face value, which we kind of have to do for now since the other party isn't speaking up. But I don't see any reason to doubt the events leading up to the apology -- e.g. How the user apparently freaked out when CNN attempted to contact him, which made him realize how findable he was due to personal details he allegedly posted in his past. The cleaning of comment history is expected, given the alleged offensiveness of the comments.

Buzzfeed has examples of the user's past submissions and comments, including reaction from journalists who are surprised at CNN's justification: https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/hanassholesolo

Given that the user allegedly posted things such as a CNN roster with stars of David for certain people on that roster, and other anti-Semitic content, CNN would be well within its prerogative to publicize the user's alleged history of anti-Semitism toward the media, which would further add discredit to the president tweeting the user's content. That CNN agreed to leave the guy alone after the apology is quite surprising in this day and age.

Their interest in him was solely because of a GIF that lampooned their organization. They then based their opinion to spare him public identification not on the basis of this GIF, but on - in their terms - taking down "ALL his offending posts" - i.e. everything this reporter deemed so - not just the GIF, over which probably no one would have threatened his personal safety. None of this deletion happened before CNN's investigation. This has the progression of a pressured attrition, not an apology, which "came after CNN's KFile identified the man". CNN then says it will hold power over him to expose him with no indication that the judgment to do so comes from where but inside CNN ... All in THEIR account of events, which expectedly would cast them in the best light on this incident