Michael Brutsch

Michael Brutsch (born January 19, 1963) is a former moderator of several subreddits on the social news site Reddit who contributed under the username violentacrez. Under that account, Brutsch generated controversy due to his contributions to various sections of the site, or subreddits, devoted to explicit material. The "jailbait" subreddit he created was a prominent subreddit on the site before it was closed down in October 2011 following a report by CNN.^[1] His ability to identify and remove illegal content from the areas he moderated helped Brutsch develop a close relationship with staff at Reddit despite his controversial activities. Brutsch's involvement with another controversial subreddit a year after jailbait's closure prompted a Gawker exposé by Adrian Chen, which revealed Brutsch was the user behind the violentacrez account. This started discussion in the media about the ethics of anonymity and outing anonymous users on the Internet.^[2]

Reddit Career as "violentacrez"

Brutsch found Reddit through a link on Boing Boing in 2007 and created the account violentacres (later replaced with "violentacrez"), deriving the name from that of one of his favorite anonymous bloggers. When he began adding provocative material to the site he initially faced opposition from Reddit's staff, but they eventually became more lenient when he proved capable of identifying illegal content at a time when they were not sufficiently staffed to take on the task. This led to Brutsch developing a close relationship with the senior members of the site and his subreddits saw rising popularity, with his jailbait subreddit—featuring provocative shots of teenagers—being named "subreddit of the year" in 2008 and at one point making "jailbait" the second most common search term for the site.^[2] Chris Slowe, a lead programmer of Reddit until 2010, said of the relationship between Brutsch and the Reddit staff: "We just stayed out of there and let him do his thing and we knew at least he was getting rid of a lot of stuff that wasn't particularly legal."^[2] Erik Martin, general manager of Reddit, defended the jailbait subreddit by saying that such controversial pages were a consequence of allowing free speech on the site.^[3]

An image Brutsch added to the subreddit r/beatingwomen, which Brutsch also moderated as violentacrez, was criticized by the larger Reddit community when a post made on Reddit in August 2011 condemned the image and subreddit. In response, Brutsch told The Daily Dot that the issue was being taken "way too seriously," and added "I was not surprised by the outrage of the person who made the post, because I see it all the time. What was surprising was the community support for it."^[3]

The jailbait subreddit that Brutsch created came to wider attention outside Reddit when Anderson Cooper of CNN devoted a segment of his program to condemning the subreddit and criticizing Reddit for hosting it.^[4] This initially caused a spike in Internet traffic to the subreddit, with Brutsch (as violentacrez) noting on Reddit that the page had peaked at 1.73 million views on the day of the report.^[5] Following these news reports, a thread was created in the section by a Reddit user which received dozens of requests for nude photos of a minor the thread creator professed to possess. Other Reddit users drew attention to the discussion and the jailbait section was subsequently closed by administrators on October 10, 2011.^[6] Brutsch disputed claims that this thread was the basis of the decision, instead claiming it was an excuse to close down a controversial subreddit due to recent negative media coverage.^[1]

Following the closure of the jailbait subreddit, it was claimed that the thread that allegedly prompted the closure was created by members of the Something Awful forum who wanted to have the section shut down. Brutsch responded to these allegations by stating his belief that regulars of the subreddit would not have been involved in such a thread.^[7] The year the jailbait subreddit was closed, violentacrez was declared the most influential person on Reddit by The Daily Dot, which noted his role in moderating around 400 subreddits including dozens of other controversial subreddits and his role in the jailbait controversy that the site described as "the first major challenge to the site’s voluntary doctrine of absolute free speech."^[8]

Brutsch revealed in a Reddit post on June 13, 2012 that admins on the site were banning sites of news sources such as BusinessWeek and The Atlantic. He stated that they were included on a secret list and that not even moderators were allowed to post links to these sites.^[9] Erik Martin responded by stating the ban was only temporary and another admin stated that such sites were banned because they were rigging the process on Reddit.^[10][11] He created a subreddit, "BannedDomains," for redditors to mention any sites that were being blocked.^[12]

Gawker exposé

After Brutsch's violentacrez account was noted, a year later, as a moderator of a subreddit called "creepshots," which had been the subject of recent attention in the press, reports emerged that Adrian Chen was planning an exposé that would reveal the operator of the violentacrez account. Several major subreddits banned links to Gawker in response to the impending exposé and Brutsch deleted the violentacrez account, though he stated this was in response to Reddit's support of the "ShitRedditSays" subreddit that advocates stricter controls on content and not the impending exposé.^[13][14][15] Moderators defended their decisions to block the site from these sections of Reddit on the basis that the impending report was "doxing", exposing the identity of a pseudonymous redditor, and that such exposure threatened the site's structural integrity.^[15]

When Chen informed Brutsch about the impending exposé, Brutsch pleaded with Chen not to publish it because he was concerned about the potential impact on his employment and finances, noting that his wife was disabled and he had a mortgage to pay. He also expressed concern that he would be falsely labeled a child pornographer or anti-Semite because of some of the subreddits he created. Despite Brutsch offering to delete his postings and leave Reddit, Chen insisted he would still publish the piece.^[2][16] Chen published the piece on October 12, revealing that Brutsch was the operator of the violentacrez account.^[2] Within a day of the article being published Brutsch's position at First Cash was terminated, along with his health benefits, and the link to the exposé was said to have been briefly banned from Reddit.^[17][18] Brutsch stated on Reddit after the article was published that he has received numerous death threats.^[19]

Reddit CEO Yishan Wong defended the content Brutsch contributed to the site as free speech and criticized efforts to ban the Gawker link on the same basis.^[20] Wong stated that the staff had considered a site-wide ban on the link, but rejected this idea for fear it would create a negative impression of the site without producing any positive results.^[21] Brutsch started posting about the controversy on Reddit under the account mbrutsch and criticized what he stated were numerous factual inaccuracies in the Gawker exposé. A member of the Reddit community organized an effort on the "circlejerkers" subreddit to give money to Brutsch through PayPal in a show of support.^[22][23]

A week after the exposé, Brutsch was interviewed by journalist Drew Griffin for a segment that aired on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. In the interview, Brutsch was apologetic about his activity on Reddit, saying he had made a mistake by not listening to people concerned about his contributions. He explained that he was most fond of the appreciation he got from other redditors for his contributions, having been the seventh most popular member of the site as violentacrez, and that Reddit helped him relieve stress. Brutsch also described the support he had from administrators, stating that he had received an award from Reddit for his contributions. Reddit noted that the award was for winning a community vote for "Worst Subreddit", and stated that they regretted sending it as well as claiming the violentacrez account had been banned on several occasions.^[24][25][26] Brutsch subsequently posted, on Reddit, that he regretted the interview and criticized the statement Reddit gave to CNN, with one redditor suggesting their claim of having banned the violentacrez account several times was false.^[27]

Ethics of outing

Gawker's outing of Brutsch as violentacrez led to contentious discussion about privacy and anonymity on the Internet.^[28] Such discussions included claims that doxing was necessary to draw attention to objectionable content so it could be removed and claims that it impedes the ability for people to exercise their right to legal free speech online due to fear of public retribution.^[29][30] Whether commentators agreed with the outing or not, opinions were mixed on the ethical consequences of the exposé.

Sady Doyle, writing in The Guardian, compared it to the outing of the alleged blackmailer of Amanda Todd and suggested that such outings may be justified, but that they may also unduly focus attention on individuals without confronting the underlying problems by engaging in "sensationalism" at the expense of cultural reform.^[31] In PC Magazine, Damon Poeter stated that, while he has defended protecting anonymity on the Internet, he still supported Brutsch being outed because he felt the various subreddits he contributed to as violentacrez were serious invasions of privacy, regardless of legality, and that it was therefore justifiable to reveal his personal details.^[30]

The public outpouring of hostility towards Brutsch following the exposé prompted commentators such as Danah Boyd at Wired and Michelle Star of CNET to question the morality of outing as a way to enforce societal standards online.^[32][33] Several commentators have expressed concern that the public shaming of Brutsch may serve as an example to others, legitimizing online vigilantism and exposing individuals such as Brutsch to mass retribution.^[32][33] Mez Breeze has suggested in The Next Web that, in outing Brutsch, Chen engaged in a type of trolling, making Brutsch "the victim of unwanted bullying and substantial negative attention" as a result of the exposé.^[34]

References