After extracting apology from “HanAs**holeSolo”, CNN reserves right to expose him.

The alleged source of the animated GIF of Donald Trump beating down WWE Chief Executive Vince McMahon with a CNN logo superimposed on McMahon's face deleted many of his posts to Reddit. He also issued an apology on /r/the_donald for his trolling activities after being tracked down by the production team of CNN's KFile.

CNN reported on the source, who uses the Reddit username "HanAssholeSolo," and reserved the right to expose his identity later if he did not change his online behavior.

CNN is not publishing "HanA**holeSolo’s" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.
CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.

That implied threat led to a widespread negative response, with some accusing CNN of bullying or blackmail. CNN later issued a statement, saying that the individual's name had been withheld for his safety and no deal was reached. Hacker, troll, and self-described white supremacist Andrew “weev” Auernheimer has threatened, through the white supremacist site The Daily Stormer, to dox CNN’s reporting team and its family members. Auernheimer is a fan of the Trump tweet, including the photoshopped WWE video.

“Just like CNN tracked down this child and used media exposure as a bludgeon against him for posting (truthful and funny) things that they don’t like, we are going to begin tracking down their families as a bludgeon against them for publishing (seditiously fraudulent) things that we don’t like,” Auernheimer wrote. He demanded CNN “fix this” by firing the KFile , denouncing the threat in the story, and by giving HanAssholeSolo a $50,000 college scholarship and assurances that “he and his family will never be harmed by your organization.”

CNN reports that the individual behind the video is not a teenager, as Aurheimer implied, but an adult male. But the questions as to why CNN’s editorial team felt compelled to place the network at the center of the story, and then publish what could be interpreted as an implied threat instead of reporting the individual’s name outright, remain. CNN did not respond to an Ars request for comment; if CNN makes a statement, Ars will update this story.