Brief recap: In June CNN was forced to change headlines and a story that was completely false, then forced to retract another fake news article, delete all links to it and apologize while forcing three employees to resign over it, on top of project Veritas capturing CNN employees admitting the whole Russia narrative they have been pumping for the past six months was "bullsh*t" and a "nothingburger."
Could it get any worse for CNN? Glad you asked, it just did.
After months of attacking President Trump, his family and his supporters, the president struck back with an amusing GIF where footage from WrestleMania 23 in 2007 where Trump went up against WWE CEO Vince McMahon during a "Battle of the Billionaires" match, has been retouched to show the President body-slamming a figure with the letters "CNN" superimposed over the person's head.
With the typical snowflake, social justice warrior mentality, CNN and the rest of the establishment media went into full victimhood mode, claiming the GIF of Trump body-slamming a logo, was somehow an incitement to violence against all media.
CNN THREATENS TO DOX REDDIIT USER OVER WWE GIF
Definition for Dox: search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent.
CNN, not knowing when to quit when their journalistic malpractice was finally out of the spotlight, decided to shoot themselves in the head by "tracking down" a Reddit user who claimed he originally created the much talked about and shared GIF the president tweeted, then publishing an article saying the original Reddit user had apologized so they would not be publishing his name unless of course the user decided to go back to his "ugly behavior on social media," in where "CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change."
Instantly the Twitter #1 trending hashtag was created #CNNBlackmail, where even progressive liberal writers like the senior reporter for Vox, German Lopez, states "I can't emphasize how bad this is on CNN's part. This is basically "don't post stuff we don't like or we'll dox you." Extremely unethical."
To highlight how much damage control spin CNN is attempting right now, before the backlash for threatening to dox the Reddit user them, Kaczynski claimed the "apology came after CNN identified" the Reddit user that created the original GIF meme, but after #CNNBlackmail started trending, the same CNN employees then tweeted the Reddit user "posted his apology before we ever spoke to him," captured in the screen shots being shared at the hashtag, just in case Kacynski decides to delete the original statement.
Evidently, CNN "was able to determine key biographical details, to find the man's name using a Facebook search and ultimately corroborate details he had made available on Reddit," according to their article on the topic, then reached out to the man in typical mafia style (we know who you are!), in fear for his personal safety as Breitbart reports, the user asked CNN not to name him, issued an apology on Reddit, which was deleted shortly thereafter, then CNN published the story saying they would not reveal the man's identity, but they reserve the right to if the man repeats his "ugly behavior on social media" again. (Archive.is link to the original CNN article)
They claim that is not a threat?
Well how about the now-deleted CNN anchor, Chris Cuomo follow up tweet, which said "Should CNN reveal name of Reddit user who made trump wrestling video? Had a lot of bigoted and hateful material on page and website." As National Review points out, that sounds a lot like "Nice life you’ve got there, fella, shame if something happened to it," which may be why Cuomo deleted it fast, but not before it was captured:
4CHAN DECLARES FULL SCALE ' WAR' AGAINST CNN - OPERATION: AUTISM STORM BEGINS
If CNN thought they were having problems before with the lies, the retractions, the forced resignations and the undercover videos from Project Veritas (another one of those is due out later), this latest decision to "track down" an Internet user for no other reason than they created an Internet GIF meme that CNN did not like, has not only brought about massive and instant backlash against the news outlet, but users of 4chan, have now declared war against CNN.
4chan is has been dubbed "weaponized autism" users, an expression referring to the impressive capabilities of socially awkward, tech-savvy internet users, typically associated with those who frequent imageboards like 4chan and 8chan, and some of their recent antics included the unmasking of the Antifa professor that assaulted Trump supporters with a U-lock bike lock, leading to the arrest of California professor Eric Clanton, and the hunt for the Shia Labeouf flag, where using stars, sounds, map locations, they trolled him across the world in order to disrupt his planned 4-year Trump protest, resulting in the end of the protest.
At the time of the war 4chan declared on Labeouf, a site called Probible offered a warning that CNN would have been smart to have taken heed of when they said "Never p*ss off 4chan users. Never, ever, never, ever."
4chan, while being no fans of Reddit, are now taking this CNN threat to dox the Reddit user, as a threat against the Internet community as a whole, for using the constitutional right of free speech simply because CNN took issue with a retouched, amusing GIF that the president then tweeted out.
They have begun "Operation: Autism Storm" in where they are calling for users to "unite" saying this is an "attack on the internet way of life as a whole," while calling for a "FULL SCALE MEME WAR," while publishing a list of CNN advertisers with instructions to "e-mail bomb their advertisers and threaten to stop purchasing their products because we don't want to buy from a company that endorses blackmail, harassment, and lying to the public."
A quick visit to one of the archived threads over at 4chan, shows other comments such as "CNN underestimates the power of neets and their infinite amount of time to make their lives miserable," along with one user providing a full list of CNN advertisers, with another suggesting compiling a full list of email addresses to add to the list of advertisers, while others take it a bit too far and suggest that CNN employees get dox'd themselves, including families, which in this writers opinion, crosses a line. Family members should never be a target.
Note - The meme war portion of thier list has already begun as multiple " memes" are already going viral across social media, including ISIS-style images with the CNN logo in place of the ISIS beheaders head, he CNN logo on the shied of a law enforcement official while he stomps on a persons head, CNN logo on a man holding a gun and a woman hostage... and many, many more.
DID CNN COMMIT A CRIME IN THREATENING TO DOX AN INTERNET USER?
Gateway Pundit takes it a step further and highlights federal law CNN may have violated with their threat: 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights, which states "If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same..."
Personally I think any individual taking on a multi-million dollar organization such as Time Warner which is the parent company of CNN, is bound to lose simply because of the money it would take for a protected legal battle Time Warner could afford but it is doubtful the Reddit user could, but those are interesting statutes to read through in conjunction with the specific wording in the CNN article.
BOTTOM LINE
CNN has an uncanny ability to take a very bad situation for themselves and make it worse. In typical "crybully" fashion they attack, attack and attack some more, then when they are hit back, they scream and whine that are being victimized, but in going after an Internet user that did nothing more than created a GIF internet meme, then implicitly threatening the user using terminology like "ugly behavior on social media," which is part of that users right to free speech, they have now united political enemies and internet enemies into declaring a full-fledged war against CNN.
This is not going to turn out well for them, especially with talk of AT&T already planning to "neutralize" CNN president Jeff Zucker if they buy out Time Warner.
