Biography
Michael Brutsch was a prolific Reddit moderator from Arlington, Texas, who used the username Violentacrez and moderated dozens of controversial subreddits, including r/Jailbait and r/CreepShots, which hosted sexualized images of women and, in some cases, minors posted without consent. On October 12, 2012, Gawker journalist Adrian Chen published an exposé identifying Brutsch as the person behind the account. The article prompted intense debate over online anonymity, privacy, and doxxing, and some moderators banned Gawker links from their subreddits in retaliation. Brutsch was fired by his employer within roughly a day of the article's publication and later appeared on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 expressing regret about his activities.