I'm torn on this one too.

I've seen people argue that this could happen to anyone, so it's a threat to everyone. But could it? If you decided to troll reddit, would you give enough identifying information in your post history to allow people to narrow you down to one person?

This is how CNN found him.

The apology came after CNN's KFile identified the man behind "HanAholeSolo." Using identifying information that "HanAholeSolo" posted on Reddit, KFile 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.

I'm not sold that most people who troll Reddit leave that many identifying clues about themselves in their post history.

People are really focusing in on the idea that CNN reserves the right to publish the person's details. While I can see why it comes across poorly in hindsight, after the apology was made, CNN didn't know that part when they wrote it.

What if the troll was emboldened by the claim that CNN wouldn't publish the troll's information and started a campaign against them? CNN might not want to be held to the statement that they're not going to reveal the troll's identity if the troll led a campaign to publish all of the personal information of CNN staff.

The campaign against CNN was started by someone anyway.

Within hours, personal information for multiple CNN staffers and their family members -- alongside images and gifs of individuals with CNN superimposed over their faces being shot in the head -- appeared in the comments of the posting.

Looking back at another instance of outing on Reddit, when violentacrez was outed, I remember wondering about the difference between doxing and investigative journalism. People seemed to feel that the outing was ok with voilentacrez since it was investigative journalism in that case. In this case, there seem to be other factors in play.

From my understanding, neither troll had done anything illegal, but the hate from the Reddit community was much bigger for one than the other.

Both the troll and CNN got caught up in the spider's web that Trump threw. Coming out of that unscathed is just a matter of luck and timing.