I lurked Reddit for a long time before creating an account which is now over 6 years old. I was a ‘Top Contributor’ and in the rewards program. 89k karma, never promoted violence or targeted any group, but I got a 7-day ban which was followed up hours later with a permanent ban. This is because of a comment criticizing Senator Radcliffe, trump, and Musk. The comment included profanity, (I called them hypocrites and cunts), but it wasn’t directed at any user or marginalized group. Just harsh political commentary.
Reddit initially issued a 7-day ban, which I appealed. That appeal was approved, the comment was restored, and they admitted it didn’t violate the rules. But the permanent ban still stands, and my follow-up appeals on that have been ignored. No explanation. No transparency. Just gone.
It’s made me realize how fragile “free speech” is on platforms like Reddit. You can insult regular users and get away with it, say horrendously racist, misogynistic, and homophobic things, but speak too plainly about powerful people and suddenly you’re promoting “hate.”
I combed through the Reddit rules, and nothing I have ever commented or posted violates them.
That’s the reason I’m here on Lemmy now. I’m trying to read more, scroll less, and engage with platforms that aren’t actively censoring political dissent. Who else is in the same boat? Is there anything that can be done to hold Reddit accountable or make people aware of they way they are censoring speech? This is my first Lemmy post. I marked it NSFW because of the profanity.
I got my 10+ year old account permabanned for saying “trans women are women”, which somehow went against their rules about promoting violence. No warning given or anything. Appeal went ignored.
Welcome in from the cold. We have hot cocoa and blankets.
Got banned for antisemitism around the time the genocide ramped up in Gaza.
And I was just criticising Israel. Things got a bit heated for the other guy apparently, and then I got brigaded and reported. I didn’t defend Hamas or advocate violence, just criticised Israel.
i was banned from worldnews in '23 for seven days, i partially abandoned that account and went with an OLD one, which usually is more trusted. up until this year, where they decided a temp ban= we will check all the other accounts you made that participated in banned subs, and ban you for that, you this is pretty ridiculous. i think someone also mentioned your account is easily linked with a strangers if any of them get banned you get a indiscriminate ban too.
this time they said i reported too many times tech sub, something about trump so i recieved a 7day ban, then all my accounts were instantly banned, depesite the accts never going into those subs(until like 1-1years later). so they were routing out old accounts you havnt used in years. but thier bannings always increase when a GOP is in power, it was like severe version in 2017-19, now that trump is in power spez is somewhat afraid he will ge the wrath of MUSK.
I was already iffy about Reddit since the r/place #fuckspez whitewashing. I was never suspended - but when I learned Luigi was suddenly an “unperson” topic there, I realized that commercialized social media is inherently compromised.
I’m not swearing off FB/Insta entirely just yet, but every time I visit them I’m more and more vividly aware how tedious Meta channels are.
my facebook account went away before my reddit account. After getting mo old account banned and then two new ones right after each other I deleted my accounts and just lurked, seeing a post of one of the ICE victims being disappeared and 5 or 7 comments were supporting the police sanctioned racists made me stop lurking as well.
deleted by creator
Closed account myself because got tired asking to remove shadow ban for two months. I have no clue why I got shadow banned, only realized when I stopped getting replies that something is not right. Oh well, I guess it’s more useful to bookmark useful reddit links in any browser instead of being able to post and comment on a platform where nobody can even see your efforts because of shitty AI and incompetent admins. I was with them for over six years.
you can hazard a guess, but its probably indiscriminate banning, linking your account with strangers, if that stranger is banned the filters automatically assume your part of that group too and this seperate from ban evasions. im not surprised other users are not reporting this on reddit, reddit has a rule against discussing bans funny enough. one of my fragile accounts was just shadowbanned, because a mod removed a comment, because the op of that thread was joking, and thought i was trying to make a snarky-smartass comment.(your on ptgcl live, for real a game that is barely functioning.
from what weve noticed: comment removals, low karma , cqs score removal, botting,etc is an instant ban now, with no recourse.
I upvoted a comment that was just a gif of Luigi Luigi (from Nintendo) smoking a cigarette.
“Promoting/glorifying violence”
Fuck Reddit. Fuck Spez. Fuck Elon.
I had my main and a business account permabanned during the election, after Trump said Liz Cheney should be shot. I said I didn’t really care or have any empathy, because Liz is a warmonger who’s called for violence against millions of people.
I didn’t say I agreed, and I didn’t say someone should do it. I simply said I didn’t care that she felt threatened by him. Permabanned.
I suggested that the most appropriate way to deal with Nazis moving into your neighborhood was the traditional Scandinavian practice of hús-brenna. Apparently the admins dislike effective solutions.
It took me a few days to overwrite all of my comments from the prior 15 years or so, but I did it. Because fuck 'em, they don’t get to train their AI on my data.
To be fair, what sounded like some northern European idea of just ignoring the person so much they have to leave did, on researching, lead to the Wikipedia article titled “Arson in Medieval Scandinavia” and was about burning people alive in their own homes.
Reddit still sucks and all and I wouldn’t be at all sad if this happened to quite a few of these fuckwads but I mean c’mon they definitely weren’t mad at the effectiveness of the solution.
they are mad, now that nazis is control of the government, a NAZI complained to reddit and told spez to increase his “moderation”.
basically like a niche sub i was visiting where the youtube channel owners were asian and jokes about news, and when they turned magat-ty they couldnt take any criticism at all and even started to systematically attack the sub, trying to get it banned, they fled to FACEBOOK of course to orchestrate thier attack, they were concerned the sub was revealing too much about thier shitty behaviour it was driving down thier viewership, they attacked instead of addressing they were the sole cause of thier decline.
the fact they are ASIAN/POC and literally sucking trump and musk off is some mental gymnastics, also contains hallmarks of conservatives, talks of pedophelia, cyrptoscams,etc.
They seemed to be upset that I was advocating for an effective and permanent solution. :)
I regret nothing.
they will probably ban talks of inglorius bastard, or Xmen first class someday.
Wiped out my 13 years of posts and comments and deleted my account when they started this crap. I thought the day they killed old reddit would be when I left but I can’t stand by while they censor free speech. The site has been a shit pile for some time though and not even a ghost of what it was in the good old days.
I said McConnell looks like he should be dead. They banned a million sub moderator and 14 year old acct. they can suck a massive dick.
i always called him a lICH, and undead. they dont like dirty words.
I was on reddit since around 2010. Had probably 500k karma in total? I was around before the apps. Still in the air of early internet vibes. It was a great place to find your community and chat.
I got my first ever temp ban a month ago for saying Luigi started a movement that our world needs. For billionaires need to be afraid of every day people.
Got a ban on r/news. Then shortly after a full ban.
I’ve been banned from plenty of right wing subs and it’s never been an issue. But one comment into their top corporate subreddit did it. So I left. Fuck em. There is no free speech there and to be honest. The quality of comments and community has dropped so heavily since 2016 that it doesn’t feel like a loss to me. Reddit community used to have standards and free speech for anyone. Now it’s no different from Facebook. Shitty joke comments on serious topics. Bots everywhere. It’s just a black hole now.
Couldn’t agree more with your assent. On one of my alts. I said we should collectively throw dog shit at Reddit HQ and they banned me. lol. It was a joke playing on the farmers that drive manure spreaders into the villages to fuck with council.
Not banned. Just close account!
I received a warning and my comment got deleted by Reddit. And after the news about potentially getting banned for upvoting specific content, I decided enough was enough, I deleted my account which I’ve had for 12 years.
agreed, its a matter of time anyways people are going to get banned fot he most preposterous thing. getting permaban from the site after a temp ban, a shadowban out of nowhere that doesnt make sense. usually shadowbanned were reserved for repeat ban site wide-evaders, but its banning anyone for the slightest incident.
I had a 12 year account, with over 900K karma. I was permabanned in Fenruary for repeating a comment I’d made nunerous times before the Inauguration without a word.
I came to Lemmy, and found lots of other 10+ year accounts that were banned as well. It seems February was a bloodbath, as they ejected lots of veteran accounts. We’ll probably never know how many, but probably in the thousands. We were the people that built Reddit over the last decade, with high volumes of posts, and they never had reasons to ban us. Then suddenly, in February, ALL of us became such egregious violators that we all had to be permabanned?
Whatever, Reddit was becoming increasingly frustrating. Every post was filled with puns, bots, Russian Propaganda Farmers, conservative trolls, and other such nonsense. Without all the active veteran posters, it’s only gotten far worse.
i had a 11year account that started on pokemon console, and i dint even know it was banned til i was sent an email, then i recieved 5+emails, turns out that one temp ban in feb12-13 triggered like 5 accounts to be sitewide banned instantly, i then fled to another forum(not lemmy) and they reported the same 5-10+years accts isntantly banned. although the forum is geared towards evading for income. then we also found out they were planning to sell REDDIT which make sense, since you need to sanatize the site and also not get on trumps and musk crosshair, they are definitely preparing for reddit to become X/facebook hybrid.
Yep, I agree. Total shitshow now. I don’t even peek in much.
Welcome to the bright side :)
