10mo ago

Reddit is a disaster and it's ban/appeal system is a joke

I͏ m͏a͏d͏e͏ a͏ p͏o͏s͏t͏ i͏n͏ m͏y͏ c͏o͏u͏n͏t͏r͏y͏'s͏ s͏u͏b͏r͏e͏d͏d͏i͏t͏ about a͏ r͏e͏c͏e͏n͏t͏ s͏c͏a͏m͏m͏e͏r͏; m͏o͏d͏e͏r͏a͏t͏o͏r͏s͏ i͏n͏ m͏y͏ c͏o͏u͏n͏t͏r͏y͏'s͏ s͏u͏b͏ d͏i͏d͏n͏'t͏ l͏i͏k͏e͏ t͏h͏a͏t͏ a͏n͏d͏ d͏e͏l͏e͏t͏e͏d͏ i͏t͏, s͏o͏ I͏ d͏e͏l͏e͏t͏e͏d͏ i͏t͏. A͏ f͏e͏w͏ h͏o͏u͏r͏s͏ l͏a͏t͏e͏r͏, m͏y͏ p͏o͏s͏t͏ w͏a͏s͏ r͏e͏m͏o͏v͏e͏d͏ b͏y͏ R͏e͏d͏d͏i͏t͏ a͏n͏d͏ g͏o͏t͏ b͏a͏n͏n͏e͏d͏ f͏o͏r͏ "d͏o͏i͏n͏g͏ i͏l͏l͏e͏g͏a͏l͏ t͏r͏a͏n͏s͏a͏c͏t͏i͏o͏n͏s͏." I͏ a͏p͏p͏e͏a͏l͏e͏d͏; t͏h͏e͏y͏ r͏e͏a͏l͏i͏z͏e͏d͏ i͏t͏ w͏a͏s͏ a͏ m͏i͏s͏t͏a͏k͏e͏ a͏n͏d͏ u͏n͏b͏a͏n͏n͏e͏d͏ m͏e͏ r͏i͏g͏h͏t͏ a͏f͏t͏e͏r͏ t͏h͏a͏t͏. M͏y͏ p͏o͏s͏t͏ w͏a͏s͏ "r͏e͏m͏o͏v͏e͏d͏ a͏g͏a͏i͏n͏," t͏h͏i͏s͏ t͏i͏m͏e͏ f͏o͏r͏ "s͏h͏a͏r͏i͏n͏g͏ p͏e͏r͏s͏o͏n͏a͏l͏ I͏n͏f͏o͏." I͏t͏ w͏a͏s͏ a͏l͏r͏e͏a͏d͏y͏ d͏e͏l͏e͏t͏e͏d͏, a͏n͏d͏ I͏ g͏o͏t͏ a͏ w͏a͏r͏n͏i͏n͏g͏ o͏v͏e͏r͏ i͏t͏ e͏v͏e͏n͏ t͏h͏o͏u͏g͏h͏ t͏h͏a͏t͏ w͏a͏s͏n͏'t͏ p͏r͏i͏v͏a͏t͏e͏ i͏n͏f͏o͏, a͏n͏d͏ t͏h͏e͏y͏ t͏o͏l͏d͏ m͏e͏ n͏o͏t͏ t͏o͏ r͏e͏p͏e͏a͏t͏ i͏t͏ a͏g͏a͏i͏n͏ a͏n͏y͏w͏a͏y͏. A͏ w͏h͏i͏l͏e͏ a͏f͏t͏e͏r͏ t͏h͏a͏t͏, I͏ g͏o͏t͏ a͏ b͏a͏n͏ o͏v͏e͏r͏ t͏h͏a͏t͏ s͏a͏m͏e͏ p͏o͏s͏t͏ a͏g͏a͏i͏n͏ f͏o͏r͏ p͏r͏i͏v͏a͏c͏y͏ v͏i͏o͏l͏a͏t͏i͏o͏n͏. I͏ a͏p͏p͏e͏a͏l͏e͏d͏, a͏n͏d͏ t͏h͏e͏y͏ r͏e͏f͏u͏s͏e͏d͏ b͏e͏c͏a͏u͏s͏e͏ I͏ s͏h͏a͏r͏e͏d͏ "p͏e͏r͏s͏o͏n͏a͏l͏ i͏n͏f͏o͏," e͏v͏e͏n͏ t͏h͏o͏u͏g͏h͏ a͏l͏l͏ I͏ m͏e͏n͏t͏i͏o͏n͏e͏d͏ w͏a͏s͏ p͏u͏b͏l͏i͏c͏ k͏n͏o͏w͏l͏e͏d͏g͏e͏ in t͏h͏e͏ a͏b͏o͏u͏t͏ s͏e͏c͏t͏i͏o͏n͏ O͏f͏ t͏h͏e͏ s͏c͏a͏m͏m͏e͏r͏'s͏ F͏a͏c͏e͏b͏o͏o͏k͏ p͏a͏g͏e͏ also multiple articles about his arrest a͏n͏d͏ h͏i͏s͏ a͏l͏i͏a͏s͏ n͏a͏m͏e͏. N͏o͏w͏ t͏h͏e͏y͏ r͏e͏f͏u͏s͏e͏ t͏o͏ e͏v͏e͏n͏ r͏e͏p͏l͏y͏ t͏o͏ m͏y͏ a͏p͏p͏e͏a͏l͏.

64 comments

I got banned from worldnews on lemmy.world for quoting Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The mods said I was being racist. I came back with citations and explained that I was replying to another HHGTTG quote with a line that followed it up in the book.
They wouldn't even consider it. No matter what, my comment "seemed racist."
Lesson: don't try to be clever.
- Right we shit on Reddit and deal with the same weird moderation in the fediverse.
  
  It's just called moderation. Since we cannot show that it could be done better, owing to a mix of human nature, the nature of the Internet and discussions on it, and how moderation generally works.
  
  Public modlogs help.
  
  It's people and society. Centralized control doesn't work. A better moderation system would let the individual manage his own filtering, instead of being involuntarily "helped".
  
  And by weird, you mean shit, right?
  
  That's just how moderation works. People suck, the platform doesn't really matter in that sense.
- I got a comment removed for calling an obvious troll a troll. I was told to report the trolls. So I did. I was banned and the troll is still trolling. I've also been called a troll by a troll and reported that I was called a troll and their comment is still there. Some bad actor mods out there for sure, bringing down the good ones.
  EDIT: their not they're
- Feel free to report this on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com
  Also !globalnews@lemmy.zip
  
  Instantly subscribed to that comm.
  
  Thank you for sharing this. Mod abuse is both important to call out and entertaining to see when drama unfolds.
- Worldnews is now IDF fan club full of bots and morons.
- One of the worst human qualities is people who are proven wrong with facts, but their pride is wounded so they lash out and double down. I absolutely can't stand it...
- I'm convinced the primary moderation goal is expunging any comment that could remotely contribute to LLM 'racial bias' - and given the mods are humans, they want to expend the least effort possible in the performance of their roles, so practically any statement along the lines of '$nouns are $adjective' gets hammered without a thought.
  
  At this point, I believe it.
  
  Man, that's sad if true.
- omg was it the one about lizards?? i think i saw it
  
  Same part of the book, so maybe. I was quoting the part of coming down from the trees generally being a mistake for humanity.
- that's literally the one place that most people are trying to be clever
I got banned from r/firstimpression due to super generic “nsfw activity.” A woman had posted a picture of herself in green and brown clothing and sitting amongst some flowers and her post was titled “What do you think my job is?”
My ban-worthy cheeky comment was “wood nymph”
Oh no!! Anyway,..
- Got banned for saying Russia was committing war crimes in Ukraine.
  As a comment to a AP story showing evidence of Russians committing war crimes in Ukraine.
  Apparently that was 'bigotry'.
  This was 2 weeks after getting banned for threatening violence. For posting a NBC news article reporting on the Trump shooting. They reversed that on appeal, but I'm not appealing the second one, they're just broken now.
  Basically anyone can report anything and they don't have anyone to review it so it's easy censorship. Yet somehow the subs that actually threaten violence have no problems.
- stuff like that happened to me also. they did not have a clue about foreign culture, and suddenly i was racist, I proved that wrong like you did, and Mods could not backtrack because of their ego.
I got banned years ago from r/funny because I was browsing on "new" (like I do here), responded to a post with a lame joke within minutes after it posted, then the powers that be decided the poster was a spammer, and banned me too. I asked them why they banned me, but got absolutely nothing in response. It turns out, though, that being banned from there made absolutely no difference to my Reddit experience.
Now that Reddit is a public company, and courting income from paid official subreddits, it's only a matter of time before there is a huge class-action lawsuit over their uneven moderation policies. Especially if companies start steering a good portion of their customer interaction there. It is super unfair to be cut off from legitimate customer service because of a power-tripping mod in a totally different part of Reddit.
Besides, I hit on the best way to ensure I never get banned from Reddit: I don't go there anymore.
- Yep I lost my 7 year old account now am never using that shitshow again hopefully lemmy attracts a bigger audience I love discussing some video games tips and tricks and lemmy's mobile interface is way way better than reddit's
  
  my acccunt was like 10 years old, with karma to match. i still got it, bu i havent logged in, because i am just furious about the whole banning thing for rules i didnt break. as soon as i get banned unjustly from feddit, i am out as well.
- I hope so, I deadass just want my old account back. I got too much history on there to lose it all.
- With all these stories of malicious or incompetent mods, it makes me wonder if Russian trolls managed to get a bunch of mod positions on Reddit and mod to frustrate and hurt or kill communities to further division. Because it sounds a bit beyond a power trip or normal incompetence.
  Though it could be due to volume and lack of effective tools and mods just dealing with their queues with batch actions and ignoring a lot of messages.
  I suppose there could also be some mods trying to kill it from the inside after deciding they didn't want to die on the "set sub private" hill once the admins started taking subs back. Guerrilla modding.
  Either way it's a shitshow.
I got banned multiple times because the person reporting me accused me of writing things i didn't even write.
mods didn't check, didn't care.
I got banned from r/mildlyinteresting like 10 years ago because I posted a picture of an oil spill in a parking lot that looked like a reindeer. Didn't break the rules, no idea why I got banned, every time I've tried to appeal they sent me through like eight moderators and nothing ever got done, and same as you, they don't even reply anymore.
I got banned because someone asked what the fairly infamous bible passage about being hung like a donkey / emissions of horses was all about. So I put it in modern language. Unfortunately the passage is Ezekiel calling out the people of Judea for acting "like whores". Perma banned. Failed appeal. Patently obvious to anyone who can read what the context of the conversation was.
- Reddit mods and frankly Lemmy mods don't appear to have much of reading comprehension beyond 10th grade, ie they read what saw and that's the end of it. They don't under literary concepts at all.
  They also love the vibe checks... All I just didn't like how you said it type thing...
  Are these supposed to be adult people or do have children modding lol
- explaining history and culture is a no no. you have to take it all at face value, and have no right to discuss it.
Got site banned for calling out and even providing evidence that the mods on /r/steamdeck were abusing their power and treating users like shit. It was "harassment."
I just made a new account, and they haven't even realized it yet. I want to do something crazy that highlights how fucked reddit is, just don't know what or how to do so at the moment.
- Thier admins and mods are incompetent
- Anyone who cares to see it already has, so I wouldn't waste too much energy on it. Even a smoking gun would likely be disappointing when the world keeps turning without much change.
  Though if you could show they've fucked the shareholders somehow, that might be different. But even there, most of the shitshow is out in the open and if they didn't cross the line by driving away so much of their userbase, I'm not sure what would be considered crossing the line.
  
  I would do that in a heartbeat.
Democracy is clearly the only proper way to manage a society, yet we continue to use totalitarian dictators. Weird.
- and democrcy is a flawed system anyways, but somehow still the best
Several mods or bots can't even comprehend grammar.
I can't even call steam deck on windows dumb without getting SITE banned, SITE
- really, thats messed up. they drive away their users just for a power thrill.
- What?
They banned me cus I told someone who was mocking the Uvalad School shooting to "Choke on butter" I was banned for several days, and i was fine with that- Until MOTHER FUCKING OPERA GX- SIGNED ME IN AUTOMATICALLY TO MY ALT. Now im fucking perma banned, and reddit WONT ANSWER ME NO MATTER WHAT I DO- Im so desperate at this point. I really really really want my account back and I miss being in all of the active forum communities there. Lemmy just isnt the same
- I really really hope theres some kinda way to get my account back. I appealed 20 times, not a single answer
  
  I wouldn't hold my breath. Reddit appeal system is known to be very bad.
  
  They don't really care unfortunately
It's horrible. I contributed content and comments for so many years for them. I also bought award coins from them and then they closed the program and literally stole my money. Ultimately, I got banned just recently for saying something that absolutely was not against their policy, it was misinterpretted, and now they won't reply to my appeal.
You should know the most reddit admin has 🫏 🧠 by the way. Not point arguing with dead 🧠.
- True
I got permabanned by commenting on a spoilt kid. I said he deserves a smack.
- Probably a good thing you got banned for advocating for child abuse.
- That's literally a violation of rule 1 of their content policy though.
  Rule 1
  Remember the human. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence. Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.
  https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy
I was banned from Reddit for allegedly promoting "hate".
Story: There was post about convicted criminals being send bacl to Afghanistan and that they were released there and are, in fact, not in prison. After a little discussion if that is good or bad i wrote that imho the cutural background CAN be a factor for not fitting well into western society. Backed by the fact that there are people considered criminals here in Germany but not in Afghanistan. I also wrote in a follow up comment that i don't see any culture as better or worse baseline...only that there are some that CAN crash with western worldview.
That got me banned and my appeal, stating that i didn't sold my opinion as a fact is being ignored.
The really sad thing is that i made the mistake of engaging a political topic online and it seems that mistake is iredeemable in the eyes of some faceless Reddit mod. I srsly liked it there for my interests in the other communities.
So now i found Lemmy.World and hope to can engage in the same stuff as there....except for the hot topics of politics....
I was banned a few times for saying something like that if some politician of some country consciously does a thing which costs Armenian lives, or, say, "recognizes territorial integrity of Azerbaijan", they are fair game for Armenians. That technically they make a choice they have right to make, or that their country has some interests, etc are reasons, but not excuses.
I mean, people are responsible for the actions they take. It's not extremism.

64 comments