I mean, if you're gonna extort somebody, you might as well force them to do some good as well.

Meh, they openly said they would've taken just the money and kept silent while also warning ahead of time that they'd ask for the API changes in addition to the money publicly if reddit wouldn't comply. So they basically admitted that it's about the money for them - doesn't feel like they tout themselves als modern day Robin Hood.

Well, there was a limited time offer for just the 4.5 million! What a steal that would have been!

The common thing they say these days is that they "helped" you find a vulnerability by breaking in and that's their pentest fee.

"No bad tactics, only bad targets". The only thing the activists would condemn here would be if Huffman were seriously assaulted on the street, or his family being harassed (although it seems like nowadays close adult relatives/associates who fail to denounce a cancellation target become fair game as well.) Anything else - legal or otherwise - would be filed under "actions having consequences". This is sadly the norm for social media activism in 2023. spez needs to accept that he's lost his membership in

Quite frankly, this is a good PR move, although I would assume that it's still better to maintain a low profile. Still, I'm sure a lot of people are hoping for more events like this to occur in order to punish Reddit.

Consider it a $4.5m asshole tax.

$4.5 mil with this inflation in this economy is peanuts.