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The Reddit user who created a video in which US President Donald Trump is depicted "beating up" CNN has apologised, saying the clip was not intended to incite violence against the media.
The doctored video of Mr Trump's 2007 World Wrestling Entertainment event appearance gained worldwide notoriety after Mr Trump shared it on Twitter, days after it appeared on an alt-right forum on Reddit.
The community in charge of editing the Reddit page that supports Mr Trump quickly deleted the user's apology from the forum but a screenshot has since circulated on social media.
"I was trolling and posting things to get a reaction from the subs on Reddit and never meant any of the hateful things I said in those posts," the user wrote.
"Just because you are behind a keyboard doesn't mean you can't hurt someone with your words or cause a situation such as this one where a simple meme is misconstrued as calling for violence."
The anonymous user also apologised for previous racist and anti-Semitic posts saying he became addicted to attracting a response with abusive statements.
Dr Brian Kass, an expert on political violence and global democracy, obtained and shared screenshots of the user's past behaviour on Twitter.
"America is generally a safe place to travel, however precautions are needed when entering areas populated by black people," one of the shared posts read.
The user said he would no longer be posting "hurtful things" on Reddit in general or anything from that account specifically.
Mr Trump came under fire for sharing the original video on Twitter accompanied by the hashtag #FraudNewsCNN — the post was also retweeted by the official POTUS account.
As a presidential candidate and as commander-in-chief, Mr Trump has repeatedly made known his disdain for the media, calling it "the enemy of the American people" and frequently referring to mainstream news organisations as "failing" or "fake news".
After the video was shared by Mr Trump, fellow users of the sub-reddit applauded the anonymous user to which he responded "I am honoured!!".
Topics: donald-trump, journalism, internet-culture, united-states
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