Something weird is going on on UK Politics on Reddit

[Tomo815]

I often visit UK POL as I lived in UK for a number of years and I like to keep updated,

So yesterday the sub was made private and I still dont understand what happened. Today I read this:

r/OutOfTheLoop - Whats the deal with /r/UKPolitics going private and making a sticky about a new admin who cant be named or you will be banned?

24,260 votes and 4,464 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

"Answer: Reddit has just hired someone who has modded a bunch of subs called Aimee Challenor. Her father kidnapped, tortured, and raped a 10 year old girl and has been convicted of it. She lived at home during some of this, yet claims to "not have full knowledge" of what occurred. After her Pedo father was arrested and bailed she made him her campaign manager. She has been fired from two political parties in the UK; the green party and the liberal democrats. Her husband has also tweeted about how he wants to rape kids, she claims his account was hacked."

Which lead me to this:

Man held 10-year-old girl captive in ‘torture den’ attic as he played out sadomasochistic fantasies

David Challenor faces 22 years in jail

www.independent.co.uk

Im not sure of what to think?

 

[Axe]

It's pretty major drama. Knight/Challenor was initially targeted by that horrible TERF sitcom writer banned from Twitter that we all know with a transphobic hit piece on his blog. He just so happened to cover then her genuinely problematic family circle, which got picked up by The Spectator and made into an article about Reddit's controversial hire. All of this info about Knight's past is very much public knowledge, it's not just dirt that's been scrounged up.

One of the mods of ukpol got banned for posting a link to the article, and now users are supposedly being permabanned for so much as mentioning her name. Other subs have gone dark in protest to the Reddit admin team's actions, and mods have been told not to allow any users to discuss Knight at all.

It's all fairly nuts, but sadly not new behaviour from Reddit's leadership. Sadly the whole thing is going to give TERFs ammo, despite Knight being a legitimately troubling hire in her own right. It's an ugly situation all around.

 

[Tomo815]

It's pretty major drama. Knight/Challenor was initially targeted by that horrible TERF sitcom writer banned from Twitter that we all know with a transphobic hit piece on his blog. He just so happened to cover then her genuinely problematic family circle, which got picked up by The Spectator and made into an article about Reddit's controversial hire. All of this info about Knight's past is very much public knowledge, it's not just dirt that's been scrounged up.

One of the mods of ukpol got banned for posting a link to the article, and now users are supposedly being permabanned for so much as mentioning her name. Other subs have gone dark in protest to the Reddit admin team's actions, and mods have been told not to allow any users to discuss Knight at all.

It's all fairly nuts, but sadly not new behaviour from Reddit's leadership. Sadly the whole thing is going to give TERFs ammo, despite Knight being a legitimately troubling hire in her own right. It's an ugly situation all around.

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OK I hadn't seen the Spectator article. I don't even know if its a reputable newspaper to be honest.

Of course one cannot be responsible of their father's actions. I don't know anything about her but how is she supposed to make a living if she cant get a job because of what her father did?

Edit: Im sorry I posted this ignorant of the facts. She may have been more involved in this than I understood.

 

[chaobreaker]

I mulled about posting this because sources outside of reddit are just absolutely steeped in transphobia. Beyond Graham Linehan, the only reporters mentioning it are british TERFs and transphobes like Jesse Singal. The first story that made UK Politics go on lockdown was a transphobic Spectator article. Kiwifarms and the like are allegedly digging up fucked up things of this new admin that I can't vouch for their legitmacy.

However it's clear she has no place moderating teen oriented subreddits in the first place let alone an admin position. She may not be a public figure anymore but the measures reddit admins are taking to protect her identity is just absurd. Dozens of subreddits are going private in defiance of the admins. None of the bigger default ones, though.

However it's clear she has no place moderating teen oriented subreddits in the first place let alone earning reddit admin position. She may not be a public figure anymore but the measures reddit admins are taking to protect her identity is just absurd. Dozens of subreddits are going private in defiance of the admins. None of the bigger default ones, though.

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She allegedly hired her father into a government position while he was being charged of his sex crimes and is married to a person that's allegedly a self-admitted pedophile.

 

[Axe]

OK I hadn't seen the Spectator article. I don't even know if its a reputable newspaper to be honest.

Of course one cannot be responsible of their father's actions. I don't know anything about her but how is she supposed to make a living if she cant get a job because of what her father did?

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With regards to her father, it's not just guilt by association. She brought him onto her campaign (twice!) under a false name and did not disclose that he had been charged with rape and torture of a 10 year old.

It takes a lot to be kicked out of multiple political parties.

 

[Sir Hound]

OK I hadn't seen the Spectator article. I don't even know if its a reputable newspaper to be honest.

Of course one cannot be responsible of their father's actions. I don't know anything about her but how is she supposed to make a living if she cant get a job because of what her father did?

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she hired her father after the convictions by the sound of it.

 

[Tomo815]

With regards to her father, it's not just guilt by association. She brought him onto her campaign (twice!) under a false name and did not disclose that he had been charged with rape and torture of a 10 year old.

It takes a lot to be kicked out of multiple political parties.

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Fuck.

Im sorry I need to edit my post.

 

[Aria]

The could have just left the article and it would have been drowned out by Tory bullshit in 2 hours. I only check that sub once a day (no idea why now it's just fucking depressing) and I would have completely glossed over the story. Instead it's now a main talking point over multiple subs and her name is known far and wide. Stupid ass decision.

I was originally in the not the sins of my father camp but after reading further and if what was written is true fuck this person completely.

 

[Uzzy]

she hired her father after the convictions by the sound of it.

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Charged, not convicted. Tricky to hire someone in prison after all. Her judgement in that matter is very.. questionable to say the least, and she's admitted to making an error there.

It is, of course, more than possible to criticise her for her judgement, and Reddit for hiring her, without being an awful transphobic bigot, something the Spectator article or that prick chose not to do because they're transphobic bigots.

 

[Tomo815]

The could have just left the article and it would have been drowned out by Tory bullshit in 2 hours. I only check that sub once a day (no idea why now it's just fucking depressing) and I would have completely glossed over the story. Instead it's now a main talking point over multiple subs and her name is known far and wide. Stupid ass decision.

I was originally in the not the sins of my father camp but after reading further and if what was written is true fuck this person completely.

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Not being in the UK anymore and reading that sub is depressing.

In my experience, there's a great many non-conservative people in UK and the country is (was?) a good place to be. I miss my friends sometimes.

 

[Axe]

However it's clear she has no place moderating teen oriented subreddits in the first place let alone an admin position. She may not be a public figure anymore but the measures reddit admins are taking to protect her identity is just absurd.

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It's a really bad look when you consider Reddit's own chequered past when it comes to pedophilia.

 

[chaobreaker]

I've been following this on /r/subredditdrama, which has posts on when /r/ukpolitics mysteriously went private:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

When it came back up after receiving official word from admins:

r/SubredditDrama - ongoing drama update: r/ukpolitics mod team release a statement on recent developments

18,006 votes and 5,330 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

The admin's official statement:

r/SubredditDrama - Admins post a clarification on actioning and employee names re: the r/ukpolitics situation.

1,502 votes and 694 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

And then when various subs went private:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

 

[Tomo815]

So its become a mod vs admins situation then?

It seems that Reddit has employed somebody who is a kind of a "known figure" ( I am trying to be diplomatic here) but does not want her past to be dragged out in the open, which is kind of an impossible situation if you think about it.

 

[Jonnax]

This is very on brand for Reddit.

 

[kami_sama]

I've been reading about the incident thanks to subredditdrama and it seems to be a bad situation all around.
On the one hand you have transphobes like that idiot and the spectator trying to use this to fuck trans folks over.
On the other Reddit fucked up, first by hiring her without checking her background, and then let her do as she pleased when confronted with the article.
And on the third hand, mods are pretty damn upset an admin can just go and ban people just by mentioning a name. That's why now there's blackouts.
TBH, if she did nothing, it'd would have blown over I think. Streisand effect in full force.

 

[mentok15]

From what I read on subredditdrama and outoftheloop she was kicked out not just because what her farther did/was accused of, but that she hid it by giving false info. And with the banning on reddit is because all admin names are on a safe word list I think.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

Why has Reddit hired her? She's a walking train wreck.

 

[Aria]

Why has Reddit hired her? She's a walking train wreck.

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Theyve been taking flack for not protecting the trans community so reached out to an active member in the community who's called them out on their issues and didn't do a background check most likely. Firing her now would be and even bigger train wreck I suppose.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

Theyve been taking flack for not protecting the trans community so reached out to an active member in the community who's called them out on their issues and didn't do a background check most likely. Firing her now would be and even bigger train wreck I suppose.

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So they didn't do a background check at all? As the stuff about her, her boyfriend and father are publicly available online.

This has reached Twitter now, good luck suppressing it now Reddit.

She needs to be fired.

 

[Deleted member 2840]

holy shit what the fuck. That article was sickening to read. Fuck her, fuck her husband and fuck her father.

 

[FF Seraphim]

Theyve been taking flack for not protecting the trans community so reached out to an active member in the community who's called them out on their issues and didn't do a background check most likely. Firing her now would be and even bigger train wreck I suppose.

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How is keeping a person who protects and hires a known pedophile not worse?!
Nah she needs to be fired and Reddit needs to vet for better people.

 

[nelsonroyale]

Ugh, that case is horrific...Poor girl...

 

[Amalthea]

The story makes you just sick in the stomach... How could that father be a campaign manager at all? Was he not put in jail?

 

[ConfusingJazz]

The story makes you just sick in the stomach... How could that father be a campaign manager at all? Was he not put in jail?

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He was out on bail, it sounds like.

 

[Jordan117]

The thing with the dad is bad enough, but the fact that she's married to a dude who openly mused on Twitter about indulging in pedophilic fantasies like it's nbd is also super messed up, especially since she works directly with at-risk youth and has admin rights on a site with millions of underaged users. I don't think she's a criminal or anything, but her judgment is questionable at best, and she shouldn't be in a position of power over kids while continuing to turn a blind eye to the potential/actual predators around her.

 

[Amalthea]

He was out on bail, it sounds like.

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Didn't know the UK had a bail system too.

 

[Flabber]

Didn't know the UK had a bail system too.

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As far as I'm aware most western countries have bail systems, since you're presumed innocent until found guilty after all. In the uk there's no bail bond either - though depending on what you're charged with there can be restrictions on what you're allowed to do while out on bail.

 

[Uzzy]

As far as I'm aware most western countries have bail systems, since you're presumed innocent until found guilty after all. In the uk there's no bail bond either - though depending on what you're charged with there can be restrictions on what you're allowed to do while out on bail.

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And mostly those restrictions are around travel, contact with people, reporting to the police etc. They don't usually restrict what roles you might take in future, as I understand it, so that'd be left up to the judgement of the employer.

 

[Aria]

So they didn't do a background check at all? As the stuff about her, her boyfriend and father are publicly available online.

This has reached Twitter now, good luck suppressing it now Reddit.

She needs to be fired.

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All I can assume is they ran a background check on her married name? Its Reddit though, admin drama is the norm there.

 

[NekoFever]

Didn't know the UK had a bail system too.

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Most countries whose legal system has roots in British common law (i.e. former British colonies) has a bail system. They're not all as out of control commercialised as the US, but that's true of most things — bail is usually based on conditions rather than money/property.

 

[TrafficCoen]

I completely misunderstood what was happening when I saw one of the subreddits I read was shutting down. I thought it had something to with a mod for that specific community censoring others. Reading about what the actual issue was, it's fucked Reddit tried to cover it up. Unfortunately, reading discussion about it on reddit is full of Transphobes.

 

[Brinbe]

was reading up on it last night and it's a super fucked-up situation all-around.

 

[Smokeymicpot]

Tons of subreddits gone private. They have to fire her right?

 

[Poltergust]

I had no idea what was going on until I realized that the Reddit admins and subreddit mods are two different groups of people.

Now it makes sense. Yeah, Reddit messed up here, big time.

 

[Delusibeta]

Been a while since I've seen a the Streisand effect invoked this badly. The irony of it all is that it looks like it was the Reddit statement was what kicked the Streisand effect into high gear, since they claimed it was due to the article doxxing an admin. Everyone goes looks at the article in question, sees that it mentions 'the Aimee Challenor case' at the end with a link to an article from The Independent and we are officially off to the races.

 

[Dyle]

Barbara Streisand has suffered enough, at this point it really needs be renamed the Reddit Admin Effect.

 

[deadman322]

disappointed it wasn't the Pinochet fanboy that was banned.

 

[Stencil]

Jesus, this is a deep rabbit hole. After clicking around, I found Reddit's "official" (I think?) response.

People in the replies are, rightfully, pissed. Wtaf Reddit?

 

[Memento Mori]

The horrifying comments from her husband are new to me but Private Eye has been covering this case for a while.

 

[deepFlaw]

Skimmed through some of the linked articles here, and what stuck out to me is that unless I'm misunderstanding something, she's only... 22? 23 at most? I think?

Which I guess makes me vaguely, vaguely more sympathetic for how some of her past choices could have happened, given the age she would have been at the time - and the age she would have been running in the elections that are mentioned - despite her father's utterly fucking horrifying actions.

But that means little for her more recent actions. And I really don't understand how she ends up as a Reddit admin (more broadly I also really didn't know that's a thing people so casually became?), and even if you're already at that point I don't understand how there isn't anything in place to prepare for this coming up publicly.

 

[LiQuid!]

From what I've gathered reading about this last night, it seems to me like this is another Cuties situation where there is a justifiable reason to be upset with this person', but a LOT of bad faith right wing actors are using the fact that this woman has an unsavory past to dox and harass her and now they've grifted a lot of well meaning subreddits' hearts and minds to the cause by adding a layer of "censorship" because reddit admins are trying to prevent them from said doxxing and harassing...

Like I get it, the shit her dad did is repugnant. I'm not defending any part of what happened prior to this woman getting hired at reddit, but most of the actual drama here seems like right wing grift trying to ruin a transpersons life

Standard disclaimer if I'm misinformed about anything. I only did some cursory reading about this last night when my wrasslin sub briefly went dark

 

[Merv]

Only 19 years?...idk about that.

 

[fragamemnon]

a LOT of bad faith right wing actors

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You can always judge just how much something is being cynically/opportunistically attacked from the right-wing by how PoliticalCompassMemes responds to it- and they lost their minds.

Not saying reddit isn't dumb here but that's not the sole motivator, they also want more admin hesitancy around banning undermoderrated right-wing subs and would love to find a way to get AgainstHateSubs defanged.

 

[WindUp]

From what I've gathered reading about this last night, it seems to me like this is another Cuties situation where there is a justifiable reason to be upset with this person', but a LOT of bad faith right wing actors are using the fact that this woman has an unsavory past to dox and harass her and now they've grifted a lot of well meaning subreddits' hearts and minds to the cause by adding a layer of "censorship" because reddit admins are trying to prevent them from said doxxing and harassing...

Like I get it, the shit her dad did is repugnant. I'm not defending any part of what happened prior to this woman getting hired at reddit, but most of the actual drama here seems like right wing grift trying to ruin a transpersons life

Standard disclaimer if I'm misinformed about anything. I only did some cursory reading about this last night when my wrasslin sub briefly went dark

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Just replying to say this is the feeling I've gotten from the whole situation as well.

 

[jph139]

From what I've gathered reading about this last night, it seems to me like this is another Cuties situation where there is a justifiable reason to be upset with this person', but a LOT of bad faith right wing actors are using the fact that this woman has an unsavory past to dox and harass her and now they've grifted a lot of well meaning subreddits' hearts and minds to the cause by adding a layer of "censorship" because reddit admins are trying to prevent them from said doxxing and harassing...

Like I get it, the shit her dad did is repugnant. I'm not defending any part of what happened prior to this woman getting hired at reddit, but most of the actual drama here seems like right wing grift trying to ruin a transpersons life

Standard disclaimer if I'm misinformed about anything. I only did some cursory reading about this last night when my wrasslin sub briefly went dark

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Honestly, I'm getting the same vibe? Like it doesn't really smell right to me - it reminds me of the thing with Ellen Pao, where once it all came out in the wash she was clearly victimized by bad faith actors using Reddit's love of a "cause" to tear down and victimize a woman who wasn't faultless but ultimately didn't deserve a fraction of the vitriol she received.

Like even in this case, where the evidence seems pretty clearly heinous, I'm taking a step back. Even when Reddit is on "the right side," as a community, they're doing it for the wrong reasons and/or being led around by their noses.

 

[LiQuid!]

Honestly, I'm getting the same vibe? Like it doesn't really smell right to me - it reminds me of the thing with Ellen Pao, where once it all came out in the wash she was clearly victimized by bad faith actors using Reddit's love of a "cause" to tear down and victimize a woman who wasn't faultless but ultimately didn't deserve a fraction of the vitriol she received.

Like even in this case, where the evidence seems pretty clearly heinous, I'm taking a step back. Even when Reddit is on "the right side," as a community, they're doing it for the wrong reasons and/or being led around by their noses.

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The worst part about this is (also much like the Cuties situation), it's really hard to stand up to the fervor of the righteous indignation without people twisting it into you supporting the initial crime. The right wing is clearly leveraging something morally indefensible to attack a woman, so joining the dogpile gives them their cake and lets them eat it too. It's a gross situation and I hope nobody is harmed as a result of it

 

[fragamemnon]

The worst part about this is (also much like the Cuties situation), it's really hard to stand up to the fervor of the righteous indignation without people twisting it into you supporting the initial crime

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The hardest part is that reddit was before the big Andersen Cooper /r/jailbait fiasco, and still is in enough places that there's even a watchdog sub for it, full of underage exploitative content. The site being not just being OK with immoral lawlessness but stating that is by intentional design undermines the legitimacy of the site operators on this.

LIke, maybe it's time for a site with a giant viewership and in the process of going public to be as good on this issue as other social media platforms.

 

[chaobreaker]

Admins let her go.

 

[Deaf Spacker]

Admins let her go.

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Good.

But why didn't they vet her properly to begin with?

 

[Tomo815]

Good.

But why didn't they vet her properly to begin with?

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Thats the key question here. Its weird that they employed a public figure with some (Im being careful with my words here) questionable associations with paedophiles and when these questionable associations inevitably came to light they started banning people.

Why didnt they see this coming? Its either incompetence, or maybe they wanted to give her a second chance or something - but in that case wouldn't have been better to just say so?