0: https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev...
Only a founder would get reprimanded for manipulating production data, anyone else would get fired on the spot (as they should). I'm not here to argue which action is worse, I'm simply pointing out that this guy clearly has a control issue and poor judgment (which is common among CEO's, granted) and it's been obvious for years. Of course he's gonna distort his reality to suit his needs, that's what these guys do.
People don't learn when they get away with things like this, they just go bigger and crazier.
Absolutely not at any serious company; fucking with user data is a major taboo.
But the CEO? Who presumably presided over numerous discussions involving appropriate data access policies and risk to the company’s reputation? That’s shockingly juvenile and shortsighted.
To be fair, this doesn't seem that bad, especially in comparison to the API price hike and their handling of it.
The thread he changed the comments in was filled with users literally accusing multiple innocent people of being pedophiles who ate children, but sure, it's a bridge too far to change the user tag of comments literally threatening him rather than e.g. banning everyone who commented there or reporting the threats to the police which would have been well within his rights!
I'm just saying that it could be a dangerous thing to do, if only because it creates doubt and deniability.
However in this case...
He already admitted to changing post titles (in his own words to fix typos and other minor corrections). So he got the hang of modifying prod data with a "good cause" and once he had the know-how he turned around and sued it to edit someone's comment.
Had that not caused a big stir, maybe it would have become his new past time. maybe it has, maybe he goes back 5-6 years to comments you cannot reply to because the threads are locked and adds little jokes there, who knows cause he is now totally untrustworthy on this matter.