The top trending topic on Twitter this morning is #CNNBlackmail after users reacted to a perceived threat the network made against the Reddit user who created the GIF, that was later turned into a video and retweeted by President Trump showing him body slamming CNN.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski of the network’s KFILE managed to track down the user’s identity-which the network agreed to keep confidential as long as he agrees to not repeat “this ugly behavior on social media again.”
Many Twitter users interpreted this as a threat to a private citizen, that should he misbehave again that they would reveal his identity–which is called doxxing .
Even a reporter from the liberal website Vox thought CNN had gone too far.
Uh. CNN shouldn't reveal this guy's personal information regardless of whether he did any of this stuff. pic.twitter.com/XC47MDXg3L
— German Lopez (@germanrlopez) July 5, 2017
Kaczynski said the statement was being misinterpreted,
This line is being misinterpreted. It was intended only to mean we made no agreement w/the man about his identity. https://t.co/9FL6EvTikx
— andrew kaczynski ? (@KFILE) July 5, 2017
Considering the amount of fake news that CNN has been caught reporting lately, they aren’t likely to get a lot of sympathy for their claims of being misinterpreted–something they have a long history of doing to others they don’t agree with.
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