US President Donald trump's infamous 2 July tweet that showed the President taking out a WWE wrestler with the CNN logo superimposed on his face had caused a stir all over the world. However, CNN seems to have gone a bit too far in its response by tracking down the person who had revealed himself to be the creator of the GIF. It raises serious questions about CNN's conduct since the person is not suspected of any crime and they had no business in tracking him down.

A step too far

CNN had published a dignified statement after Trump's tweet went viral last Saturday and everyone assumed that that would be the end of the matter.

On the same day, it had been revealed that the GIF had first surfaced on reddit and before long the user "HanA**holeSolo" stated on Reddit that he was the one who had created it. The original GIF had been published on Wednesday and on Saturday tweeted out a video, with accompanying commentary.

However, CNN's reaction to the whole thing has been nothing short of astonishing. The network has not only combed through the user's Reddit activity to fish out controversial posts but also tracked him down and contacted him by e-mail. It is quite stunning that one of American's biggest networks used their considerable resources to find out the identity of the person who made that GIF. It raises serious questions about their conduct as a responsible organization.

An act of doxing

For the uninitiated, doxing means the act of surreptitiously finding out someone's private information and then publishing it, usually online. It is a form of harassment that has dogged plenty of people over the years. Now, CNN did not actually publish the Reddit user's personal information but used their own resource known as 'KFile' to identify the user.

Although the network stated that it will not publish the name of the man behind "HanA**holeSolo", it is nothing short of an invasion of privacy to find out his identity.

According to the CNN report, the man had also posted anti-semitic and racist content on Reddit and it seems, CNN's intervention was the reason why the "HanA**holeSolo had to issue an apology on Reddit.

It is nothing short of bullying of a private citizen and plenty of Internet users are up in arms about CNN's conduct. In fact, it would not be unfair to say that the very fact that CNN is in possession of his private information might have been used as a bargaining chip to force out the apology. This is a very dangerous precedent and according to Julian Assange, CNN might have committed a federal felony. He tweeted his concerns.
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