Following the arguably unprofessional and unpresidential (yet still totally hilarious) tweeting of a video depicting US President Donald Trump pounding away at a man with the CNN logo pasted over his face, CNN actively sought out the creator of the original animated image and traced it back to a Reddit user, who they managed to find the identity of and "attempted" to contact him. Soon after, said memer then issued a lengthy public apology for the image and discouraged other's to make similar images. Article below:

"How CNN found the Reddit user behind the Trump wrestling GIF"


Let's rephrase that a little. CNN got offended over a meme, found the creator and coerced an apology out of him, threatening to doxx, that is, publish his personal information.

I personally disagree with any media company having political leanings and believe that news should be objective and unbiased, but it's well within the company's rights to have a position, even if it's unprofessional. However, it's absolutely unacceptable under any circumstances for a multi-national news outlet to blackmail any citizen, much less over an internet meme, and then brag about it on their own website. As far as I'm concerned, they are taking pride in the fact that they commited an act of domestic cyber-terrorism, and should be treated as such. Anyone even remotely involved should be arrested and sent to prison on coercion charges, and have their sentences doubled just for the fact that they're a major public figure.

It's wrong, it's unacceptable and it should not go answered. These people need to be held accountable for their actions as domestic terrorists. And that goes for any other news organization that would even consider doing the same thing, regardless of political alignment.

CNN is stupid lol

Furret : I legit got a laugh out of that.

Well, we have people being judged and sent to prison for memes or tweets in Spain, so I'm not surprised this has happened.

CNN has acted way too unprofessional there. Bragging about how you blackmailed someone is despicable, even more for a renowned multi-national. What did they expect to become by bragging about it? The heroes who unmasked the man who made... nothing of harm?

Personally, I'm tired to see how a small group of people get extremely furious at an innocent act like a meme or a tweet can be, and they go to any length to unmask who did it and have them punished. If you want to punish them then send a formal request to ban their account for whatever infraction they made and issue an apology before they get closed down, if the site agrees then move on with your life and if it disagrees then stop being so picky because you will only damage yourself further.

Let's hope CNN gets the punishment it deserves, if not this will only keep escalating. 

I don't think this guy deserved what he got. 

The internet is a free place for ANYONE to talk about whatever they want to on any topic that they want. If they post something offensive (and lots of people hate it) just take it down! You don't have to trace down someones phone number, address, etc. because of some post on the internet. The worst part is that they acknowledge that they have his personal information and can leak it if they really wanted to. Do I know that he posted offensive things to a subreddit? Yes I do. I also know that a supposedly well respected news network by many should not be acting this way towards a man who was simply making fun of them. This is a free country! This is not China or some other country that constantly monitors media to see if people are making fun of things that go on in the country. CNN needs to leave him alone as this goes against his personal rights and is pretty much equivalent to getting hacked on CS:GO because you called someone a name.

If CNN wants to still be active then THEY should issue an apology to HIM. People already hated them for showing not real news (Hillary Clinton died on the campaign) and so on. 

Oh well, it seems I have made a wall of text here. So TL;DR, CNN should leave that guy alone. 

Land of the free. Biggest lie in history in my eyes. Talk about freedom all the time, but you can't make a joke about trump and not get blackmailed. Glad I live in Norway where I pay way to much tax to get free health care.

I WIn Also : It's not about making fun of Trump. It's about making fun of CNN, and how CNN got offended. 

Really funny, my school relies on CNN for random news. I wanna bet that they'll stop using CNN after this. 

Still sad to see a big news network who it was a good idea to blackmail a random person from reddit. The backfire would be huge. Like it is now. Maybe they will learn someday. Will not hold my breath.

CNN should have known better than to go after a random person on reddit because they NEEDED to know about that source of the picture and go out of their way and post the user's name to get an apology over a harmless joke. Very petty for a random meme that got viral which goes to show that they are pretty spineless to threaten to doxx the poor guy and brag about it.

I WIn Also : There is some truth to the US being "the land of the free", but only if you argue semantics. We're allowed a certain amount of freedom. In the end, we're not really free because you only have as much freedom as you're willing to take.

Was the creator of the meme from the US? If he was, I wouldn't back down, hell, if CNN published my personal info I'd be going after them to shut down their corrupt booties (can't say the a-word, so I'll say something equally as funny). CNN is god awful television in general, not even with Trump bashing them over and over again, I just hope to see CNN get their comeuppance (which is sort of like what happens in pro wrestling, CNN is the heel, and Donald Trump's gonna clothesline them for REAL!)

Typical, Typical Cirno News Network. One time it spreads misinformation, another time it bullies random people who don't bow down to specific ideologies.

This is just... well, insane, if you ask me. I mean, it was mostly harmless, but CNN clearly took it the wrong way and had to do what they did because of what they thought. Which I disapprove of, regardless of what they thought - blackmail isn't really the answer to that kind of problem. And besides, what kind of damage could they had done if they followed through if the person didn't apologise?

Well right now CNN is digging themselves deeper in a whole. Over the past 10 years CNN has been debunked several times by fact checkers. 

But in the past 4 weeks. CNN has had to retract two stories. 

The first being CNN said that Trump  had talks with Putin and had met him before being sworn in. This was false while Trumps team is accused of having talks with Russia. There is not evidence at this time that he Met Putin before their big meeting that took place today. CNN was forced to admit it was false and take the story down. 

Second, CNN Reported that Trump had made the video of him beating up CNN. But this was proven false and instead it was a reddit user who made the video Trump shared it. CNN later has been accused of blackmailing the user. CNN has even told what city the man lives in, and other personal info. 

Now I am not a lawyer but CNN may have opened themselves up to a lawsuit on this one. Leaking addresses and personal info is in violation of the Privacy Act and HIPPA acts. This could present a serious problem for the news network if the user decides to sue. 

Also to be clear I am not a Trump fan by any means. But I think the media is causing a lot of problems, by posting fake news, pushing agendas and stir the pot up. 

This story reminds me of how news stations in New England after the Sandy Hook tragedy how they published addresses of concealed carry holders. Those people sued and won as the Judge ruled that news networks violated their privacy and the Hippa acts by publishing their addresses and that they were a concealed carry holder. 

So as I stated CNN may have just opened themselves up to a lawsuit. 

This is the first I've heard of this as I rarely use Reddit and we do not have CNN over here... but honestly what did they really expect...

Let's name and shame someone who is part of a large community of people and not expect a backlash..,. Were they expecting some sort of praise... or something.... I mean all they have done is traced back a meme... congrats, I dread to think how much time and money was spent on achieving such a legendarily pathetic feat.

The only thing I can fathom is that they thought it would make them look cool to younger people, or they just had so little to talk about that someone was just like "have you seen this meme" and someone higher up was like... "let's find the culprit to this clearly hideous crime"

Although the major corporations trying to stomp out small people is not a new thing after all. 

Socialist, Fox-hater, and Trump-resister here.

CNN is digging their own grave. I don't think they do fake news, but I don't think they tell the whole truth often. This whole "blackmailing" thing is really, really stupid. It's the nail on the coffin. They need to act more professional and stop screwing up like this. Sonicmcmuffin said it straight perfectly. you can't do something like this, brag about it, and not expect people to get pissed.

The only thing I really have to say is....really? They are a multi-million dollar company, why should the give a flying fudge sundae about who makes memes of them? It's kind of stupid and disappointing and it hurt they're reputation more than that meme ever did.

CNN is one of the most immature and unprofessional organizations I have ever seen. They have done nothing but act like whiny bratty children the entire last year and a half now; this whole incident being one of the most glaring examples. I can't believe how so many people can be THIS dense and self-unaware, or have their priorities so out of whack.