So long story.
I’ve been with reddit for close to 15 years, I’ve saw some dumb shit from server moderators, some dumb shit by automoderators and some really dumb shit from the Reddit Admin team. It all started a month ago with a mod queue, i’d been placed on a mod queue on one subreddit and I messaged their mods about it, they didn’t bother replying. I visited ask the mods, asking if it was normal for the mods of a popular sub to act like that. Around the same time I’d joined Microsofts sub to ask questions about MSN news’ comment moderation as I noticed a lot of disgusting comments (which i will not repeat here) were being allowed through, and yet my comment about a dangerously thin model being ‘dangerously thin and will end up with health concerns’ was removed. A day later, i got a ban from that community, got a mod mail about it too, they claimed I was being disruptive and I replied “Bullshit, you’re banning me for critisism of microsoft, you think removing critisism magically makes your problems go away? Fucking assholes like you are ruining the internet.”
My post on ask the mods though was still active, I updated it about the microsoft mods abusing their power and my post is now attracting assholes left, right and centre. I got a week ban from Reddit because the microsoft mods reported my reply. A day later, during the ban i get a new message from ask the mods, they’ve banned me there too. I sigh and shake my head. Any time theirs drama, mods side with the majority causing trouble and remove the minority.
But then I lay low, I don’t want any more bans, and this is where the ridiculous part starts.
A fox had been stuck in a charity shop for a week and the owner was refusing to open the shop to allow the RSPCA access to release the fox, their was a lot of conflicting reports on why he was refusing, the big reason seeming to be, ‘He was off work and couldn’t be arsed’
I said as folk were getting heated “I’d kick the window down if I was there, fuck what the owner says. I wouldn’t let a poor animal stave to death.”
Uh, 8 minutes later. My reddit account was perm banned for ‘promoting violence’, turns out windows have feelings. Or further proof reddit needs to get rid of their damn AI moderation and let people do the frigging job. I made a new account and I contacted a few admin via a mail to see if they could help me. New account banned an hour later. I tried again, same results.
Absolutly braindead. I won’t lie and say i’ve never been in trouble on reddit, but FFS at least punish me for something legit, not some brainless AI horseshit.
You must log in or register to comment.
It’s the same on Lemmy. A random mod can ban you (and remove your comments) from one or several communities just for disagreeing with what you said. What are you going to do about it?
I’ll just get this out of the way up front: Reddit sucks.
While I understand your frustration, I think you’ve made some errors here. First, Reddit is not trying to be a free speech platform anymore. They are a totally subjective space that is ruled by the personal will of moderators and admins. They don’t have to explain anything to you, it is their house, and each sub is an arrangement where you pretty much just have to take it as it is, or leave it.
“Fucking assholes like you” and “is it normal to act like that” are antagonistic statements. From their perspective, you are a stranger antagonizing them on their turf—the easiest and quickest solution for them is to just get rid of you.
When they removed your comment, it seems like it could have been left at that. They didn’t want your comment. So it goes. By fighting it, you contributed to a situation that resulted in you being perceived as a troublemaker.
If you feel like you can’t speak your mind on a platform like Reddit, the answer is to find a different platform—not fight the Reddit dragon with complaints and insults.
No, I got banned for the window comment by the actual Reddit admins, not community moderators. That’s what gets on my nerves, and how that appeal form is fucking useless.
They basically repeated the rule I broke back to me, even when I rightly pointed out no rule was broken.
@Scorchx @WeirdGoesPro Their stupid admins permabanned me too. Same day, same reason as the erroneous automated ban. Apparently I was using a duplicate account to evade an earlier temporary ban.
Can’t appeal the appeal, so that’s that. #Reddit is a vile place anyway so no great loss.
Reddit is not worse than any other platform when it comes to getting banned for (seemingly) random reasons.
It is when you keep getting shadowbanned for no discernable reason, like me, and no clear way to appeal.
And not like ‘I’m a jerk and don’t recognize it.’ I literally only posted in a fandom TV sub and a niche technical sub, never even close to combative…
I’m not familiar with shadowbanning because it didn’t happen to me or anyone else I wrote with. We all got permabanned officially. But even the permabans were weird. In some case I was still able to edit old comments, in another I wasn’t. In a third case I was able to backup my saved links. So technically, a lot was broken. I don’t think that anyone at Reddit really knows what’s going on or has control over anything.
I was permabanned after getting banned from /r/movies for talking about piracy. I then made a couple completely normal comments there on an alt account months later without even realizing it and got permabanned.
One of my accounts got banned because I wrote that racism is bad. Another for writing that sexism is bad. A third one because I condemned a terrorist group in a private chat (Of course a group which is officially considered to be a terrorist group by many countries). I used simple language in all those cases, like literally writing “Racism is bad”. Is there a pattern? Is it random? Who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is no reasonable explanation.
Well just like in the real world, there’s a segment of people who get a little bit of power and let it go to their heads.
No, they didn’t delete my comment. They outright kicked me off the sub and got rude when challenged. I was rude in retaliation and blocked them. Then I got the weeks ban. That was about 4 weeks ago.
You just said it yourself—you retaliated. That’s the mistake. They have all the power by design, and nothing is going to change that. If you don’t like it, you are welcome to find somewhere else to make your point.
Being a Redditor is like being at boot camp—your only options are “thank you, sir, yes, sir, I understand, sir.” Any response that deviates from that will just make your situation worse—and that is exactly how it is intended to be.
It’s not AI.
Reddit is just that shittily modded.
And you won’t be able to ever get anyone to answer anything.
Same happened to me a few years ago
Well, turns out Lemmy is exactly the same. Got the evidence a few minutes ago.
I suggest to not make the mistake of blaming it on AI. Humans (on average) aren’t any smarter. Social media platforms (like Reddit) had a long history of ridiculous bans way before automods were a thing. It can happen at any time and it will happen at some point.
