The Fauxmoi subreddit is under attack
YouTuber and podcaster Ethan Klein has incited a misguided war
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Trying to imagine this girl suddenly having to navigate terrorism accusations and a 4.5 million-member subreddit and…midterms. —Kate
Today’s ICYMI dives into the Ethan Klein vs. r/Fauxmoi drama in more detail, and what the rise in accusations of “coordinated social media campaigns” could mean for online free speech:
While Deuxmoi, the anonymous Instagram account that shares unverified celebrity gossip submissions, is run by a mysterious Hollywood insider, r/Fauxmoi, the subreddit inspired by Deuxmoi, has a different kind of leader: A college student from Canada.
They’re not the only mod behind the 4.5 million-strong subreddit, but they are the most senior of seven who are currently facing an onslaught of harassment and threats after YouTuber and podcaster Ethan Klein began calling them out both on Instagram and in his livestream.
It started when a user submitted a screenshot of an Instagram Story from Ethan’s wife, fashion designer Hila Klein, in which she shared that an artist declined to collaborate with her because they “can’t be associated with” their company. “When we talk about how serious the rise in antisemitism is this is why it’s scary for us,” Hila wrote in the Story. “It’s now so casual to not want to associate with an Israeli.”
Hila was born in Israel, and Ethan is Jewish. While he has stated he supports a free Palestine, his other stances on Israel and the war in Gaza have caused ruptures in his professional relationships, most significantly with former podcast co-host and streamer Hasan Piker. He has also been behind a number of controversial statements, including one sexualizing a Boston Marathon bombing survivor, which r/Fauxmoi members began sharing to suggest that there were plenty of other reasons why an artist may not want to be associated with the Kleins’ companies, h3h3productions and Teddy Fresh.
Ethan took to his own Instagram Stories to claim that r/Fauxmoi was indistinguishable from a “Neo-Nazi forum,” kicking off a war that has resulted in harrassment, attempted doxxing, and veiled threats as Ethan claims the subreddit’s mods, and other snark subs that have been critical of him, are a “network of sock puppet accounts.” He has also said that “a lot of these people think that they're safe but they will soon find out that they're not safe,” that he's “preparing stuff and working behind the scenes,” and for his followers to “stand back and stand by because there's something in the works that I just can't wait for.”
Now, r/Fauxmoi’s head moderator is battling potential legal threats and attempting to secure the safety of the r/Fauxmoi subreddit—in between going to classes. When we got on the phone, they told me that they had had only five hours of sleep in the past two days (they also requested to remain anonymous to protect their privacy).
Our conversation, which we held over the phone and via Reddit chat and I have condensed for clarity, explores the subreddit’s response to these allegations, the unpaid labor of being a Reddit mod, and where r/Fauxmoi goes from here.
How long have you been a Fauxmoi mod and what drew you to it?
Since around 2021. I joined Reddit in 2020 during the pandemic (as I’m sure many did), and when I stumbled across the Deuxmoi subreddit, I had very little idea of how Reddit worked. I had no idea who Deuxmoi was or really what the sub was even about beyond celebrity gossip. To be completely honest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Over the years, I became head mod as other mods either became inactive or left—sometimes because of life getting in the way, and sometimes because of largely stupid spats between mods (believe it or not, people drawn to a celebrity drama sub can be a bit dramatic). I know I have definitely evolved and mellowed out a lot over my years modding this sub, because I was a teenager when I joined as a mod and now I’m not.
I know Deuxmoi herself gets these kinds of threats for her Instagram, but has a subject of a Fauxmoi thread ever come after the subreddit before, or is this a first?
The biggest initial legal threat, which I’m sure you’re already aware of, was when Deuxmoi herself filed a copyright infringement claim against the subreddit. From my understanding, most copyright infringement claims against subreddits would be ignored as they would have very little standing. However, since Deuxmoi’s copyright was along the lines of “an online website that shares celebrity gossip,” and r/Deuxmoi fit that definition, we were approached by a Reddit admin and told that we need to choose a different subreddit name, and they would transition all of the content, subscribers, and approved users over to the new subreddit. To be quite frank, a large portion of the sub was not a fan of Deuxmoi (especially due to her stance on the Depp/Heard trial), and the subreddit barely posted her content anymore, and had instead transformed into a sort of catch-all celebrity gossip sub. We had considered changing the sub name before the infringement claim, but learned that that was not a possibility—at least not until the copyright claim was filed. In the end, it turned out to be a win-win.
We do occasionally get legal threats in our modmail, but we inform them that as they have mentioned a legal issue, they are now required to contact Reddit admin as we are not qualified or empowered to respond to such claims. To be frank, most of the time they are coming from users who don’t seem particularly credible (at least based on the content and tone of their messages), so it’s not really something that worries us.
The other most recent legal squabble was with the Lively/Baldoni trial. A post or comment by a user on this subreddit was cited in a footnote of her initial filing shared with the New York Times, and there were texts in the lawsuit celebrating the success of their “smear campaign” against Lively on Reddit. Despite our sub being much less harsh on her than many other subs on Reddit (I welcome anyone to look at other entertainment subreddits to compare), this footnote was seen as proof of collusion, astroturfing, and manipulation beyond what was happening on the rest of Reddit. There was severe backlash and we received lots of vitriolic messages accusing us of either being part of the smear campaign, or covering up for a woman they believe is falsely alleging sexual assault (and these messages continue to this day, although they have dwindled down significantly).
Can you share the extent of the backlash the recent Ethan Klein accusations have caused? Has Ethan been in touch with any of the mods individually?
The modmail and harassment has been far beyond what we could’ve expected. I imagine it would’ve been a lot less impactful had it not been accompanied by the vague and ominous threats of harassment by Klein. Most of us mods (at least the ones who have been active throughout this saga) knew and still know very little about him or what he does. We had no intention of addressing any of the brigading and harassment (he’s one of hundreds of “public figures” that get posted to the sub every week, and to be frank, a YouTube influencer is not really on our radar). After his post comparing this subreddit to “Neo Nazis” due to users’ criticism of how his wife framed a business spat, the extent of my knowledge was that he was presumably one of many who conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. As is their nature, the users of the sub, of their own accord, proceeded to submit a barrage of posts regarding his history of racism, antisemitism, sexualization of young girls, etc—which again, contrary to what some are saying, is not out of the ordinary for us to approve. Klein has repeatedly questioned why he’s being posted on the sub as he is a YouTuber, seemingly unaware that posts about YouTubers and influencers have been shared on the sub since its inception. Deuxmoi herself is an influencer. Moreover, pro-Palestine/anti-Zionist content, no matter how obscure, is also often submitted to the sub. He is not special in that regard.
However, once we were made aware of personal and doxxing threats, and the particular targeting of one of our mods on his livestream (who has only been a moderator on the sub for 2.5 weeks), I decided to start drafting a post addressing the entire ridiculous saga. Unfortunately I had to suffer through his livestream in order to record his specific threats.
Also, no, he has not been in touch with any of us personally. However, as the immediate chaos of the Klein threats tempered, it was brought to our attention that an article authored by a journalist based in Israel had been published on Pirate Wires (a small news site with 5,000 instagram followers owned by “anti-woke” Peter Thiel protege Mika Solana). The article in question alleged that a “network of mods” on a Discord server were spreading Hamas propaganda and infiltrating other subreddits. I encourage everyone to read the article if they can — it seems to have a fundamental lack of understanding of how both Discord servers and Reddit works. Supposedly having a mod that is active on a large Palestine-related Discord and multiple pro-Palestine subs means that our subreddit has been “infiltrated by terrorists.”
Do you have any thoughts as to why this has escalated the way that it has?
Most people discussed on the subreddit have meaningful public reputations to maintain, and this means that pursuing petty claims against social media users and engaging in conspiracy theories is perceived as being beneath their station. When it comes to influencers (particularly those whose content is based largely on engagement and feuds rather than substance), they are often more sensitive regarding their reputations, and have less PR and business savvy. Or alternatively, they aren’t surrounded by people who have that PR and business savvy and who would prevent them from making these kinds of public miscalculations and blunders.
Deuxmoi, despite her prickly online persona, at least had the good sense to go through Reddit’s legal team in order to get the subreddit shut down. Klein’s threats of harassment and doxxing (however much he tries to reframe them as benign and legally sound) are frankly reflective of a sort of unhinged behaviour that I can’t really explain.
This comes back to a larger issue in the Reddit ecosystem, which is that mods are unpaid. I'm sure this has required a lot of logistical and emotional labor to navigate. What keeps you here? What do you want people to know about this work?
Re: the logistical and emotional labor—yes, in ways that I can’t even begin to explain, especially for some of our more vulnerable mods. I think what keeps me here is sheer stubbornness (I don’t think anything else would’ve been strong enough). I can’t speak for the rest of the mods, although two of them were already forced to delete their accounts after the harassment and doxxing threats they were receiving.
In terms of the fact that mods are unpaid: I know that Reddit is considering moving towards a paywall model, with some mods receiving financial compensation. However I wouldn’t feel comfortable employing that on this sub (if the decision is in fact left up to us), because it would likely compromise both the quality of—and trust in—the subreddit.
How does Fauxmoi plan to move forward? Are there any ways people can support you?
I do feel like in this instance the community has been fairly supportive as this whole saga has played out, and to be honest a lot of the time even one positive comment or message often helps offset the draining effect of the 10 corresponding vitriolic messages or comments we get.
There is often a lot of stressful and consequential stuff happening behind the scenes—particularly in this case—so more than anything people can support us by giving us their patience and perhaps some benefit of the doubt given some of the more hysterical accusations that have come out.
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