CNN, 'HanAssholeSolo' and the #CNNBlackmail Backlash

On June 28, 2017, a Reddit user posting as 'HanAssholeSolo' submitted an edited clip of Donald Trump's 2007 WrestleMania appearance to r/The_Donald, showing Trump tossing WWE chief executive Vince McMahon to the ground with the CNN logo superimposed over McMahon's face, under the title "Trump takes down fake news (Colorized, 2017)." Over the following week the GIF drew upwards of 9,400 points and 350 comments. On July 2, 2017, President Trump tweeted a video version with the hashtags #FraudNewsCNN and #FNN; within 48 hours the tweet had more than 564,000 likes and 339,000 retweets. CNN said the tweet "encourages violence against reporters," and the Committee to Protect Journalists said it "undermines the work of the media in the U.S. and makes it more dangerous."

CNN's KFile unit, using identifying information the user had posted on Reddit, determined key biographical details, found the man's name through a Facebook search and corroborated details he had made available on Reddit. KFile attempted to contact him by email and phone without response; the next day he posted a lengthy apology to r/The_Donald and deleted all of his other posts, writing, "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," and insisting "the meme was created purely as satire, it was not meant to be a call to violence against CNN or any other news affiliation." The subreddit's moderators later took the apology down. After posting it, the man called KFile, confirmed his identity, and asked not to be named out of fear for his personal safety, adding that the White House had never asked permission to use the GIF.

CNN's July 4 article said it was not publishing his name because he was a private citizen who had apologized, shown remorse and taken down his offending posts — followed by the line that became the story: "CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change." The hashtag #CNNBlackmail began trending on Twitter that day, with critics accusing the network of threatening to release his personal information, while rumors that the user was a 15-year-old boy spread until KFile's Andrew Kaczynski stated on July 5 that he was an adult.

Press commentators split over the network's conduct. "With the addition of three sentences, CNN turned a relevant news story into an utter mess," Engadget's Jessica Conditt wrote, while arguing that naming a relevant person is standard journalistic practice distinct from doxing: CNN "definitely did not dox anyone." The user deleted his account after his apology.

The backlash escalated into real harassment of journalists: the KFile editor's parents and wife received roughly fifty harassing phone calls, and other team members reportedly received threatening messages. A senior administration official said the tweeted video had not been pulled from Reddit, but the White House never answered CNN's questions about how it reached the President's feed; Trump issued no apology, and Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert said "no one would perceive" the tweet as a threat. The episode became a flashpoint in the broader Trump-era conflict between the administration, online communities such as r/The_Donald, and the mainstream press.