Gawker exposes Violentacrez
Gawker outs Brutsch, a 49-year-old computer programmer from Texas, as the the real-life identity of “Violentacrez”, a Reddit moderator, who had set up more than a hundred sub-forums (called sub-reddits) where users could share links and images of underage girls, rape fantasy and upskirt photos. Brutsch shuts down his Violentacrez username after Gawker reporter Adrian Chen tells him he knows his identity. He returns to the site with the new handle “mbrutsch”. In response to the exposé of Violentacres’ identity, a number of Reddit moderators ban Gawker links from their subreddits.
Loses job
As a result of the Gawker story, Brutsch is fired from his job. Brutsch said that he had warned his boss of the article before receiving a call Saturday telling him to not return to the office. Brutsch:
All my remote access has been disabled, my health insurance and FSA were cancelled immediately (so they had to drag someone in over the weekend to do that). At this point, if any of the dozens of death threats I’ve gotten were to make good on their promises, at least my wife would have the insurance.
Brutsch’s supporters on Reddit launch a campaign to donate money to the newly unemployed Brutsch and he released his email address on Reddit so supporters could donate money to his PayPal account.