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Tell HN: Banned site-wide from Reddit for helping a fellow mod fight hate speech
I've been using reddit almost daily for well over a year now, both as a moderator and as a user. To keep it short, moderators on Reddit use an official bot called u/AutoModerator that is primarily used to automatically perform a set of actions when certain keywords are used.
The problem with this bot is that it's not user-friendly at all, so even to make it do the most basic action you need to read the documentation. Since most people are to lazy to read it, there's an official subreddit called r/AutoModerator to let people ask and answer questions about it, and I've been fairly active there.
6 days ago, I came across a post from a user that didn't understand why their AutoMod code wasn't working. I asked them to send me the code, and when they did I fixed it by simply adding two square brackets around the keywords. The code they were trying to make would remove comments that contained some common racist words. After I send them the working code, they thanked me for being helpful and added it to their own AutoMod configuration.
6 days after that, I receive a primave message from the official Reddit account saying:
> You’ve been banned from Reddit for three days for violating Reddit’s rule against promoting hate in the following content.
> Link to reported content: https://new.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/comments/w5l6sd/comment/ihhhqi2/
> Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. We don’t tolerate promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability, and any communities or people that encourage or incite violence or hate towards marginalized or vulnerable groups will be banned.
Reddit literally site-wide banned me, an active moderator of 7+ communities, for helping a fellow moderator remove racist comments in their own community. The reason? "Promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability". No good deed goes unpunished, I guess
I have already submitted a ban appeal and I'm currently waiting for a response. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, since I can't use Reddit I have a lot of time to answer them...
- mytailorisrich 4y agoMy take is that this is a blessing in disguise for you. Reddit, especially at high doses, is not healthy.
- Pakdef 4y agoJust create a new account...
- Quequau 4y agoI am familiar with this sort of thing. My expectation is that the "review" will take longer than the 3 day suspension and that you probably are going to struggle getting the black mark on your account removed. I suppose the key element to your account's suspension is that you sent keywords for hate speech via direct message. Which is interesting and totally unsurprising.
- FaviFake 4y ago> you sent keywords for hate speech via direct message I didn't send it privately, the comment is (well, was) public and I included a link to it in this post
- mikequinlan 4y ago>I didn't send it privately So you know how to prevent this problem in the future.
- FaviFake 4y agoYes, I do. Sending automod code in PMs is generally not welcomed on reddit, so maybe i could also use a separate site
- kkoncevicius 4y agoYou helped creating a bot that punishes users for posting certain words. You used those same words in your message and got a treatment not unlike the one you were helping to automate. Maybe there is a lesson here somewhere.
- freemint 4y agoMaybe even exactly the treatment. It could be the reddit runs automoderator on DMs to flag people. It would be ironic if by fixing an automoderator config and chatting about that in Reddit DMs this code gets used on oneself.
- jasonhansel 4y agoLooks like OP ran into a version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
- FaviFake 4y agoThat was a fun rabbit hole! Thank you!
- nousermane 4y agoKeyword-based moderation has some pretty bad failure modes, yeah. False-positives from context, false-positives from different meaning of the same word... But what alternatives are here? "Report" button, and human reviewing each and every instance of it? We've all heard horror stories about fb moderators burning out and getting PTSD from this kind of work.
- Levitz 4y agoI'd say in a site like Reddit where every comment is voted on to change its visibility to begin with, there is no need whatsoever for such a tool. The amount of overmoderation on the site is ridiculous. You have the site admins, then the subreddit mods, then the moderation by the users themselves, then the automatic stuff. You can still block users and filter subjects.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- h2odragon 4y agoI hafta ask: does this make you think that perhaps "automated moderation" isn't such a good idea? Or is your case just one of the regrettable mistakes that never really happens to real people?
- FaviFake 4y ago> "automated moderation" isn't such a good idea Why would people be free to insult users using the offensive words listed in the code I fixed? The list in the post includes words like the n-word and the r-slur
- yucky 4y agoI would love to see this full list so we can determine how consistent Reddit is with banning hateful language. Because from a non-moderators perspective Reddit has earned it's reputation as an over-moderated cesspit for a reason. Would you be willing to share that list, rather than a couple of cherry picked examples??
- FaviFake 4y ago> Would you be willing to share that list? The link to the list is already in the post itself, you are free to view what words the other mod wanted AutoMod to remove
- Balgair 4y agoI'm not sure what list you're referring to. There seems to be no link in your post. What am I missing?
- FaviFake 4y agoI just checked, the link is still there. I copied it for you: https://new.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/comments/w5l6sd/comment/ihhhqi2/ https://new.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/comments/w5l6sd/comme...
- paragonnoir 4y agoIronic, you got punished by a similar system to the one you helped create.
- blocked_again 4y agoIf you are passionate about building communities then build your own website. And use reddit to get traffic to the website. You have full autonomy. You make money.
- dtx1 4y agoBeen where you are. Long story... 1. Your life will be better when you reduce your reddit usage. By a lot. 2. Stop doing free work for Advance Publications, Inc., the owners of reddit.
- morsch 4y ago... for three days.
- Ekaros 4y agoThat seems so arbitrary length... Why not just outright permanent?
- berry_sortoro 4y ago
- sto_hristo 4y agoAnything social that tech enabled has become so toxic and damaging to normal f**ing human beings that i kinda wish governments step up and go full autocratic on these sites and services. This stuff is 21st century digital bubonic plague. Revert life to the 90s and 80s snapshot.
- trollied 4y agoThis does not belong on HN.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
- stevage 4y agoSounds like a mistake that will be corrected. Posting it about it elsewhere is just shit stirring.
- katkatkatkatket 4y agoI don't understand why people are so desperate to give reddit their time and effort. It's rubbish, move on!
- pawelmurias 4y agoYou will never find a more wretched hive of scum and cuckoldry than reddit
- bm3719 4y agoImagine the job listing: Full-time (+ overtime) data entry position for faceless corporation that will treat you like human refuse and eventually ban you. Salary $0/hr (non-negotiable). Apparently people like OP are lining up for this though.
- BrotherBisquick 4y agoYou're part of the problem. Reddit needs less censorship, not more. If someone is breaking a real-life law, then report them. Otherwise, block them and move on with your life. You're not entitled to not have your feelings hurt.
- FaviFake 4y ago> Reddit needs less censorship, not more. Why should people be free to insult users using the offensive words listed in the code I fixed? The list is in the post includes words like the n-word and the r-slur, that doesn't have anything to do with censorship and such. Did you even read the full list?
- Balgair 4y agoHN is pretty free-speech-maximalist, especially on a Saturday morning. The argument you're trying to use isn't really going to work here at this time. You might try changing your rhetoric and see if that help you out more.
- happytoexplain 4y agoIf you insulted somebody with slurs, the HN community would flag you pretty quickly regardless of what day it is. I think a lot of people (some of whom are in the comments section here) purposefully pretend that there is no difference between that kind of moderation and things that more reasonably qualify as "censorship". They essentially want an excuse to express their negative emotions at other people, and look to the lofty ideals of "free speech" as a pretense to attack the mechanisms that prevent them from doing that.
- FaviFake 4y agoI fully agree, redditors also do this when a mod says, well, literally everything.
- JYellensFuckboy 4y agoIs your suspension with or without pay?