CNN denies to have threatened the Redditor behind the origin of the “HanA**holeSolo” to come out and apologize to the media outlet.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, in an article “How CNN found the Reddit user behind the Trump wrestling GIF,” wrote about how he was able to discover the person behind the much controversial meme.
It make matters worse, Kaczynsk highlighted that the Redditor was in fact a Trump supporter, as per the information found on his social media.
“The apology came after CNN’s KFile identified the man behind ‘HanA**holeSolo.’ Using identifying information that “HanA**holeSolo” posted on Reddit, KFile was able to determine key biographical details, “to find the man’s name using a Facebook search and ultimately corroborate details he had made available on Reddit,” Kaczynski stated.
The Reddit user wrote:
“First of all,I would like to apologize to the members of the Reddit community for getting this site and this sub embroiled in a controversy that should never have happened, I would also like to apologize for the posts made that were racist, bigoted, and anti-semitic. I am in no way this kind of person, I love and accept people of all walks of life and have done so for my entire life. I am not the person that the media portrays me to be in real life, I was trolling and posting things to get a reaction from the subs on reddit and never meant any of the hateful things I said in those posts.
I would never support any kind of violence or actions against others simply for what they believe in, their religion, or the lifestyle they choose to have. Nor would I carry out any violence against anyone based upon that or support anyone who did.
The meme was created purely as satire, it was not meant to be a call to violence against CNN or any other news affiliation. I had no idea anyone would take it and put sound to it and then have it put up on the President’s Twitter feed. It was a prank, nothing more. What the President’s feed showed was not the original post that was posted here, but loaded up somewhere else and sound added to it then sent out on Twitter. I thought it was the original post that was made and that is why I took credit for it.”
The public lashed out against CNN denying and threatening a private citizen for a meme faster than they fired Kathy Griffin for mock-beheading the president.”
On the other hand, Kaczynski in his article denied all claims that stated that CNN had threatened the user, thus causing him to make a formal apology. He mentioned that the user had in fact called Kaczynski and said: “I am in total agreement with your statement. I was not threatened in anyway.”
