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Moderation on Reddit has been questionable for a long time and its killing the site. To give some examples: - /r/energy used to ban everyone in favour of nucle

Moderation on Reddit has been questionable for a long time and its killing the site. To give some examples: - /r/energy used to ban everyone in favour of nuclear energy - If you post on /r/conservative you can expect to receive a bunch of bans from unrelated (popular) subs. Doesn't matter what you posted, being associated with that subs "taints" your account enough for some moderators. - /r/UnitedKingdom banned me for critizing a government welfare program - /r/assassinscreed banned me for critizing a character in their latest game For me it makes sense that the smaller subreddits should have the freedom to moderate as they want but the larger reddits should aim to at allow opposing viewpoints to prevent echo chambers from forming. Moderation should be focused on quality, not on viewpoints. Obviously it goes without saying that threats of violence and celebration of murder have no place on any platform. The irony is that all this censoring just creates a backlash and further polarisation. If you are only allowed to discuss certain subjects on a "left" space you both create the illusion that the left only cares about a subset of topics and by banning people you create resentment that drives them towards (more welcoming) extreme spaces. There's many factors that form the political preferences and opinions of the younger generation but it would not suprise me if for a subset (young college educated males?) of them Reddit heavily contributes towards increased polarisation.

djxfade 1y ago
It goes both ways. If you try to post anything remotely criticizing Donald Trump or his government on /r/conservative you'll also get banned. Even if you try to keep it objective.
- LaurensBER 1y ago
  Fair point, I barely comment on that sub so my experience is limited. I guess the ratio of well moderated subs compared to poorly moderated subs heavily skews towards the poorly moderated. Irrespective of their political viewpoints.
- user34283 1y ago
  Not really. There's few places on Reddit where you will be banned for expressing liberal opinions. /r/conservative, a place for conservatives to discuss "from a distinctly conservative point of view", is one of them. It's kind of also in the name. Do they ban conservatives for criticizing Trump? I don't know, perhaps. I'm going to assume many such comments on there will in fact be made by liberals. Meanwhile, I was immediately permabanned from my country subreddit when I expressed a pro-Israel opinion in the comment section of a relevant post. In the Modmail I sent, the "moderator" basically insulted me.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    /r/conservative has absolutely nothing to do with conservatives, but everything to do with the cult-of-trump. It's a great place to read up on how completely crazy the world has become, if you had posted any thread there on the onion a decade ago absolutely nobody would have believed it to be possible.
    - Jensson 1y ago
      It gets that way when being pro trump gets you banned from r/politics, so all of those who are pro trump take over some other subreddit. It used to be they had their own, but after thedonald was banned they migrated to r/conservative. The more you separate people the more unhinged they become. If you went back and talked about how reddit tried to hide that Biden was demented or that Harris was unpopular so would be a catastrophic election loss that would also have been onion worthy but today its reality.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - lotsofpulp 1y ago
        The election results were 77,302,580 votes against 75,017,613 votes, or 49.8% versus 48.3%. I would not call that unpopular.
        deleted 1y ago
- florkbork 1y ago
  You already suspect this, but your expectations are out of line with the actual game/meta game/propaganda model there. You as a person who uses reddit have a general agreement most likely with the concept of reddiquette, and perhaps go to engage with diverse views, maybe to learn something, maybe to just have an argument. Normal internet forum stuff. However, you are arguing with a vertically integrated propaganda machine that is basically an experimental weapons testing facility for rhetoric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency but on so steroids, of which those steroids are on various white powders and no this isn't the War on Christmas. It's less obvious because this machine mimics normal, centrist US culture in ways that slip under the cognitive radar. You could more easily recognize this if it were AI prompts in the style of 1984 or Pravda; but it's more difficult in this case - it is just rational enough to be ridiculous/incredulous; that it seems like debate is a suitable avenue; it aligns to your context enough and while you might not agree; you could see how 1 in 10 people might be misled. As a result, you engage and then one of the following happens: - You make a point so salient they banhammer you because you cannot control the narrative. - Or they mock you, and rally their "side" into feeling superior as a reaction/answer to their side's questioning of "huh, are we the baddies?". Of course not, it's the "loser woke left antifa attack helicopter pronoun'd TROUBLEMAKERS", who are an outgroup and just don't think about it too hard, k? Don't do the hard work of self examination! Just yell at this outsider! As a result you aren't engaging with the centre right you hoped to; and if you even get close you will be removed as a threat, ASAP. The game being played by one participant is "try anything that catches attention, causes fear and lures people to our mindset"; vs your (reasonable, but ultimately mistaken) view that rational debate would correct this and mutual understanding may emerge (and that's a positive; win win social outcome) This isn't your fault, even longtime slightly centrist conservatives end up falling victim to this trap; when they realize their values don't align to the mechanics above, and are surprised when they are turned on by their former allies. Unless you have a firm grounding in human psychology and few qualms about manipulation; it is unlikely that discourse or debate will get you anywhere if based on facts, not feelings. I would firmly encourage you to keep the instinct to engage in discourse; but find social forums where it is a lot harder for a propaganda machine to control the narrative. Will still be tough, but face to face interactions in common spaces can build community. The "other side" of the political spectrum or almost any group is absolutely just as liable to end up in this situation. It is not some "right wing" specific problem, it is a small but powerful group hijacking others to further their own goals, and people protecting their interests by funding the small group.
mike_hearn 1y ago
You missed maybe the biggest one, /r/bitcoin, which around 2015 started banning anyone who wanted Bitcoin to actually follow the original design and continue scaling up on-chain transactions. The moderator, some anonymous student (possibly named Michael Marquardt), literally declared anyone who wanted Bitcoin to be used for regular transactions offtopic and banned them on a massive scale. When explaining his actions he said something like, "I've moderated forums before so I know how sustained censorship can change a community". And then he set out to do it. Reddit has been garbage for a long time and people's reliance on it is a huge problem. Abuse of it redirected Bitcoin onto a fundamentally different path (one nobody had agreed to), simply because of the sustained gaslighting and psychological manipulation its format allows. That said, user-driven content moderation sucks everywhere. Wikipedia has the same problem. So does HN to some extent. The future is moderation driven entirely by LLMs with openly published prompts.
- debtta 1y ago
  I think maybe this is a feature rather than a bug. I know at least a couple of subreddits for specific 'true crime' cases which split into one for people who believed the suspect was guilty and one where everyone believed they were innocent. The thing is, the split fora were actually much better than pre split. When both sets of people were together every topic degenerated rapidly in exactly the same way: meticulous_postrr: I just reread the transcript of Fred's sixth interview and noticed that he mentioned seeing a purple t-shirt in the woods. Could this be the shirt that Ahab was wearing at the road house, which looks blue in the security footage? middled_aged_loner: Nice try, but unless you can explain the severed foot in the ashtray, the blue shirt is irrelevant here. AhabDidIt: Still trying to shill the 'only two feet' theory, m_a_l? What about what Edgar saw? curious_n00b: Hi, I love the podcast but I'm not sure about one thing: is the Sylvia mentioned in Dushane's diary the same Sylvia who knew Edgar from volleyball camp? AhabDidIt: welcome curious. Good question, but you're wasting your time with the diary. The July entries were written in August, by April. See my previous threads /r/TheScarletFred/Ahabs_lies /r/TheScarletFred/Ahabs_lies_2 and /r/TheScarletFred/the_diary_evidence_reexamined middled_aged_loner: So in your opinion ADI, April apparently knew that Dushane had seen Vanessa on the rollercoaster but didn't mention it to the police on the 1st October? This completely fails to stack up. What about Vanessa's unfinished ice tea? WHAT ABOUT THE SEVERED FOOT? The split subreddits have better information, better curation and better flow. People who are otherwise in agreement debate precise points carefully and in detail. Both are available on the same internet so anyone who wants to can read both and make up their own mind. I know we're all supposed to be worried about echo chambers, but sometimes an echo chamber is somewhere a specific conversation can take place which couldn't elsewhere.
elktown 1y ago
Confusingly one-sided post given the point it's seemingly trying to make.
- LaurensBER 1y ago
  Could you point out what exactly you find confusingly one-sided? Happy to update the list of examples if it enhances the quality of my post but when writing it I could only draw on personal experience.
  - elktown 1y ago
    All your examples are hand-wavey and and follows a stereotypical right-wing grieviences pattern, while still somehow trying to discuss polarisation in a neutral manner. You also suggest in another comment in this thread that Twitter is somehow a better place, suggesting a pretty significant lack of nuance. I don't expect to see any, but I'd certainly be curious to see what posts that got you banned or admonished so I can form my own opinion on them.
    - LaurensBER 1y ago
      You seem to focus a lot on the examples that I provided (and my opinion of Twitter?) and not so much on the content of my comment or the general topic of the conversation. Could you motivate why this is relevant and what your counter point would be? I'm genuinely curious!
      - elktown 1y ago
        I'm just continuing the thread of conversation? And also because figuring out biases is basic critical thinking? Especially relevant in this kinda thread. Furthermore, I'm sick and tired of self-created right-wing narrative of censorship when they're ever so eager to do it to the fullest possible extent they can with their current powers and societal acceptance. And then we're not just talking about random people being mean to you on Twitter, but government power. All while leaning on a narrative of "We're just doing what you did before" that they've created themselves by endless repetition.
hilios 1y ago
/r/conservative is probably the most heavily censored echo chamber on Reddit, yet somehow you only take issue with other subreddits flagging participation.
- LaurensBER 1y ago
  Could you be as kind as to point out where I'm _only_ taking issue with the moderation of other subreddits? As you can see in my comment I'm merely listing a few examples.
  - hilios 1y ago
    You're listing several examples, including /r/conservative, yet even though this subreddit is widely known (on Reddit) to be a censored echo-chamber, you do not mention this aspect. I find it hard to believe, that this would be a coincidence.
    - LaurensBER 1y ago
      From the HN guidelines: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith Let's aim to keep HN better and more pleasant to use than Reddit;)
      - hilios 1y ago
        I did explain my reasoning. You coincidentally not mentioning /r/conservatives censorship practices, simply doesn't appear plausible, given the context of your comment and demonstrated knowledge of reddit moderating practices.
        LaurensBER 1y ago
        I disagree with your assessment, if I remember correctly I posted three times on that sub. The HN guidelines are there to improve the quality of the conversation, there's not much to further discuss so I'm going to leave it at this.
testdelacc1 1y ago
/r/AskBrits banned me for pointing out that there are several threads each day about immigration, each tailor made rage bait. Sometimes they’re not even a question. I’ve personally caught a couple of Iranians and Russians brazenly posting such threads at 4am British time (working hours in Tehran) and the moderators did nothing. They simply allow such threads while deleting any thread that goes “is anyone sick of the constant threads about immigration?” These threads generate so much engagement from people of all opinions that it makes the sub appear in people’s feeds as recommended content even if they’re not subscribed to the sub. It gives people the impression that there is only one political subject in the UK that gets any discussion. I don’t know why the moderators of this sub do this, but the effects of their moderation are clear.
- themodisonHN 1y ago
  On a related note, leaving my gripes with one guy aside, a lot subreddits are also just blatant marketing fronts, with the full blessing of the mods. /u/Turbostrider27 is a shared account between marketing firms. Saying their name in any sub the account is active on will shadow ban your message.
  - DiggyJohnson 1y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/user/turbostrider27/ https://www.reddit.com/user/turbostrider27/ That's fascinating. How does an account like this not blatantly violate the TOC for personal or commercial use of Reddit?
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      Reddit wants to make money, which requires keeping advertisers happy. Why do you think r/hailcorporate was killed?
- debtta 1y ago
  I've often posted on the internet at 4am local time before. How did you establish the posters were Russian or Iranian, other than by time zone? (4am London is working hours for around half the world population.) Not denying that there are people in these countries who want to cause trouble on the internet. But there are many such people in all countries...
ycombinete 1y ago
/interestingasfuck banned me for commenting on /asmongold at some point. Not even for the content. Simply for having interacted with /asmongold. Edit: To be clear I wasn't picked on by anyone. It's a bot they run. This is a blanket ban that /interestingasfuck extends to anyone who has commented/posted on /asmongold, or any subreddit they consider to be right wing (by USA standards).
kevincox 1y ago
It sounds like a large part of the problem is how important a subreddit name is to popularity. If a subreddit has a good obvious name it is going to collect members and activity even if the mods are awful. Competing subreddits will struggle to attract new users as they need some different less-obvious name. I wonder if this could be approached in a way that new subreddits didn't have this disadvantage so that they could compete on mod quality and slowly grow / migrate the community. Of course there are advantages to short unique names like readable links. But it seems that this false authority may not be worth the downsides.
- LaurensBER 1y ago
  That's an interesting idea! Perhaps intentionally using uuids in the URL instead of slugs and improving the recommendation/search algo (e.g take into account the average post length or cited sources in the ranking) would solve this issue. Main challenge might still be that its very hard to move an existing user base if the moderator(s) blocks all posts about other communities. Perhaps a more democratic moderation system or a system wide rule that disallows moderators from blocking posts about other (competing) subs would work?
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    These are good technical suggestions. The social problem is that ragebait => more money for Reddit.
  - guywithahat 1y ago
    Yeah but then you can't easily visit specific subs. When I was younger and didn't have an account, I would just go to the url to view my favorite subs, and uuid's would make it less intuitive. One other option sites like scored.co do is they allow subs to use their own url (like their Trump sub is called patriots.win). The site admins have kind of given up on the site though so I'm not sure if you can still do it, but it seemed like a clever idea.
UpsideDownRide 1y ago
I can throw another example /r/lectures was a really cool place were people shared mostly academic lectures. Mod took over, put the sub in approved posts only and is just doing token approves very rarely without any way to reclaim the sub.
mountainriver 1y ago
I got permanently banned from Reddit for participating in a thread debating the death penalty. In which I wrote one comment suggesting we shouldn’t waste a bunch of court costs on mass shooters who are blatantly guilty. That was considered “instigating violence” lol
- quesera 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - mountainriver 1y ago
    > To be fair, that's an objectively degenerate suggestio You should be a Reddit mod lol This is an "objectively sane" comment that got a lot of upvotes actually
    - quesera 1y ago
      Upvotes on Reddit are not indicative of sanity. Any suggestion to remove due process or the rule of law from governance is objectively degenerate and retrogressive. No matter who you are, you do not want to live in that world.
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  Depending on how you wrote or worded it, that IS instigating violence. "We should just execute them and save money" is instigating violence. If you aren't willing to spend resources because it's "obvious" to you, you do not care about Justice. Cops always think they got the right guy, and they are regularly blatantly wrong, including for people on death row.
  - mountainriver 1y ago
    Talking about procedures and sentencing for a heinous crime isn't instigating violence lol. Is sending people to prison instigating violence? I really expected more from the HN crowd but this place has obviously deteriorated
Aurornis 1y ago
> - If you post on /r/conservative you can expect to receive a bunch of bans from unrelated (popular) subs. Doesn't matter what you posted, being associated with that subs "taints" your account enough for some moderators. You left out the fact that you can’t post to /r/conservative until the moderators there audit your post history and perform an interview with you to confirm your ideology matches theirs. If someone does pass the test they’re allowed to comment. If they make a comment that disagrees with the message the moderators want to push, their commenting privilege is revoked. It’s not a real subreddit. It’s a moderator-curated echo chamber. They run it like a propaganda outlet, only allow approved thought from approved commenters, and ban anyone who steps out of line with the mods. That’s why every thread you view there will have “load more comments” buttons that never load anything: They remove more comments than you’re allowed to see.
- docmars 1y ago
  Could it be that sharing conservative ideas is against Reddit's community guidelines? There are other subreddits with primarily right or moderate leaning communities and comments in those get deleted all the time with moderator messages saying they risk the entire subreddit getting taken down by Reddit simply for sharing basic conservative views.
  - square_usual 1y ago
    I'm sure you can give us examples of these "basic conservative values" that gets entire subreddits banned off a platform run by a libertarian prepper who admires Elon Musk.
  - stickfigure 1y ago
    This is not credible without evidence.
    - DiggyJohnson 1y ago
      I can testify this is credible. You can prove this by trying it out yourself.
jmkni 1y ago
Try suggesting on /r/MichaelJackson that he was maybe a little weird about kids, instant ban
- criddell 1y ago
  I don't really have a problem with that. The scope of the sub is: > Appreciation subreddit dedicated to the life and art of Michael Joe Jackson Criticism of Jackson would be off-topic. Plus it's not like anybody who is a fan of Jackson doesn't know about those allegations and some of the weird things he did. People who feel the need to say he was weird about kids in that subreddit are probably just trying to troll Jackson fans. It's not going to make the subreddit better for fans who are there to celebrate the art and music of Jackson.
- mlrtime 1y ago
  I'd ban you too. Unless there is something new and news worthy, you'd be trolling.
zahlman 1y ago
I would share my own stories of bans, but they're so ridiculous (including all four of the "strikes" that led to my account ban by the admins) that I wouldn't expect anyone to believe it without evidence, and it all happened many years ago (but I fully expect things are even worse now). Although I do notice that r/science is apparently down to "only" about 1300 moderators. I'm pretty sure they broke 2000 at some point. (The large majority of those have been around for at least 5 years; it seems that the Reddit UI caps the displayed age, because I recognize names from much more than 5 years ago.)
- cap11235 1y ago
  All these sorts of bans are ridiculous. I got banned from a EU sub because I said my mother was polish, then someone doxxed out more info about me, and then I got criticism for not being a true Pole. This came only from me saying my mother was Polish. Fucking lunatics.
miki123211 1y ago
IMO, Reddit's main problem (and this certainly isn't unique to Reddit) is that it is a registry of names. There can be only one subreddit named r/politics, so whoever gets that name essentially decides how you can talk about politics on Reddit. Same applies to any other subject. R/fishing will always sound more credible than r/fishing2 or r/2wqy4f. If there's some kind of fishing controversy, and the mods of r/fishing only allow one side to speak, that side gains a lot more credibility. The other side can move somewhere else, but that place won't have the credibility associated with r/fishing. Reddit can try to fight this, but as long as subreddits have unique and memorable names instead of IDs, this is going to be a problem and require them to get their hands dirty.
Hobadee 1y ago
I was banned from /r/askaconservative for stating a very mainstream position. Mods told me I was "astroturfing".

djxfade 1y ago

It goes both ways. If you try to post anything remotely criticizing Donald Trump or his government on /r/conservative you'll also get banned. Even if you try to keep it objective.

LaurensBER 1y ago
Fair point, I barely comment on that sub so my experience is limited. I guess the ratio of well moderated subs compared to poorly moderated subs heavily skews towards the poorly moderated. Irrespective of their political viewpoints.
user34283 1y ago
Not really. There's few places on Reddit where you will be banned for expressing liberal opinions. /r/conservative, a place for conservatives to discuss "from a distinctly conservative point of view", is one of them. It's kind of also in the name. Do they ban conservatives for criticizing Trump? I don't know, perhaps. I'm going to assume many such comments on there will in fact be made by liberals. Meanwhile, I was immediately permabanned from my country subreddit when I expressed a pro-Israel opinion in the comment section of a relevant post. In the Modmail I sent, the "moderator" basically insulted me.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  /r/conservative has absolutely nothing to do with conservatives, but everything to do with the cult-of-trump. It's a great place to read up on how completely crazy the world has become, if you had posted any thread there on the onion a decade ago absolutely nobody would have believed it to be possible.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    It gets that way when being pro trump gets you banned from r/politics, so all of those who are pro trump take over some other subreddit. It used to be they had their own, but after thedonald was banned they migrated to r/conservative. The more you separate people the more unhinged they become. If you went back and talked about how reddit tried to hide that Biden was demented or that Harris was unpopular so would be a catastrophic election loss that would also have been onion worthy but today its reality.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - lotsofpulp 1y ago
      The election results were 77,302,580 votes against 75,017,613 votes, or 49.8% versus 48.3%. I would not call that unpopular.
      - deleted 1y ago
florkbork 1y ago
You already suspect this, but your expectations are out of line with the actual game/meta game/propaganda model there. You as a person who uses reddit have a general agreement most likely with the concept of reddiquette, and perhaps go to engage with diverse views, maybe to learn something, maybe to just have an argument. Normal internet forum stuff. However, you are arguing with a vertically integrated propaganda machine that is basically an experimental weapons testing facility for rhetoric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency but on so steroids, of which those steroids are on various white powders and no this isn't the War on Christmas. It's less obvious because this machine mimics normal, centrist US culture in ways that slip under the cognitive radar. You could more easily recognize this if it were AI prompts in the style of 1984 or Pravda; but it's more difficult in this case - it is just rational enough to be ridiculous/incredulous; that it seems like debate is a suitable avenue; it aligns to your context enough and while you might not agree; you could see how 1 in 10 people might be misled. As a result, you engage and then one of the following happens: - You make a point so salient they banhammer you because you cannot control the narrative. - Or they mock you, and rally their "side" into feeling superior as a reaction/answer to their side's questioning of "huh, are we the baddies?". Of course not, it's the "loser woke left antifa attack helicopter pronoun'd TROUBLEMAKERS", who are an outgroup and just don't think about it too hard, k? Don't do the hard work of self examination! Just yell at this outsider! As a result you aren't engaging with the centre right you hoped to; and if you even get close you will be removed as a threat, ASAP. The game being played by one participant is "try anything that catches attention, causes fear and lures people to our mindset"; vs your (reasonable, but ultimately mistaken) view that rational debate would correct this and mutual understanding may emerge (and that's a positive; win win social outcome) This isn't your fault, even longtime slightly centrist conservatives end up falling victim to this trap; when they realize their values don't align to the mechanics above, and are surprised when they are turned on by their former allies. Unless you have a firm grounding in human psychology and few qualms about manipulation; it is unlikely that discourse or debate will get you anywhere if based on facts, not feelings. I would firmly encourage you to keep the instinct to engage in discourse; but find social forums where it is a lot harder for a propaganda machine to control the narrative. Will still be tough, but face to face interactions in common spaces can build community. The "other side" of the political spectrum or almost any group is absolutely just as liable to end up in this situation. It is not some "right wing" specific problem, it is a small but powerful group hijacking others to further their own goals, and people protecting their interests by funding the small group.

mike_hearn 1y ago

You missed maybe the biggest one, /r/bitcoin, which around 2015 started banning anyone who wanted Bitcoin to actually follow the original design and continue scaling up on-chain transactions. The moderator, some anonymous student (possibly named Michael Marquardt), literally declared anyone who wanted Bitcoin to be used for regular transactions offtopic and banned them on a massive scale. When explaining his actions he said something like, "I've moderated forums before so I know how sustained censorship can change a community". And then he set out to do it. Reddit has been garbage for a long time and people's reliance on it is a huge problem. Abuse of it redirected Bitcoin onto a fundamentally different path (one nobody had agreed to), simply because of the sustained gaslighting and psychological manipulation its format allows. That said, user-driven content moderation sucks everywhere. Wikipedia has the same problem. So does HN to some extent. The future is moderation driven entirely by LLMs with openly published prompts.

debtta 1y ago
I think maybe this is a feature rather than a bug. I know at least a couple of subreddits for specific 'true crime' cases which split into one for people who believed the suspect was guilty and one where everyone believed they were innocent. The thing is, the split fora were actually much better than pre split. When both sets of people were together every topic degenerated rapidly in exactly the same way: meticulous_postrr: I just reread the transcript of Fred's sixth interview and noticed that he mentioned seeing a purple t-shirt in the woods. Could this be the shirt that Ahab was wearing at the road house, which looks blue in the security footage? middled_aged_loner: Nice try, but unless you can explain the severed foot in the ashtray, the blue shirt is irrelevant here. AhabDidIt: Still trying to shill the 'only two feet' theory, m_a_l? What about what Edgar saw? curious_n00b: Hi, I love the podcast but I'm not sure about one thing: is the Sylvia mentioned in Dushane's diary the same Sylvia who knew Edgar from volleyball camp? AhabDidIt: welcome curious. Good question, but you're wasting your time with the diary. The July entries were written in August, by April. See my previous threads /r/TheScarletFred/Ahabs_lies /r/TheScarletFred/Ahabs_lies_2 and /r/TheScarletFred/the_diary_evidence_reexamined middled_aged_loner: So in your opinion ADI, April apparently knew that Dushane had seen Vanessa on the rollercoaster but didn't mention it to the police on the 1st October? This completely fails to stack up. What about Vanessa's unfinished ice tea? WHAT ABOUT THE SEVERED FOOT? The split subreddits have better information, better curation and better flow. People who are otherwise in agreement debate precise points carefully and in detail. Both are available on the same internet so anyone who wants to can read both and make up their own mind. I know we're all supposed to be worried about echo chambers, but sometimes an echo chamber is somewhere a specific conversation can take place which couldn't elsewhere.

elktown 1y ago

Confusingly one-sided post given the point it's seemingly trying to make.

LaurensBER 1y ago
Could you point out what exactly you find confusingly one-sided? Happy to update the list of examples if it enhances the quality of my post but when writing it I could only draw on personal experience.
- elktown 1y ago
  All your examples are hand-wavey and and follows a stereotypical right-wing grieviences pattern, while still somehow trying to discuss polarisation in a neutral manner. You also suggest in another comment in this thread that Twitter is somehow a better place, suggesting a pretty significant lack of nuance. I don't expect to see any, but I'd certainly be curious to see what posts that got you banned or admonished so I can form my own opinion on them.
  - LaurensBER 1y ago
    You seem to focus a lot on the examples that I provided (and my opinion of Twitter?) and not so much on the content of my comment or the general topic of the conversation. Could you motivate why this is relevant and what your counter point would be? I'm genuinely curious!
    - elktown 1y ago
      I'm just continuing the thread of conversation? And also because figuring out biases is basic critical thinking? Especially relevant in this kinda thread. Furthermore, I'm sick and tired of self-created right-wing narrative of censorship when they're ever so eager to do it to the fullest possible extent they can with their current powers and societal acceptance. And then we're not just talking about random people being mean to you on Twitter, but government power. All while leaning on a narrative of "We're just doing what you did before" that they've created themselves by endless repetition.

hilios 1y ago

/r/conservative is probably the most heavily censored echo chamber on Reddit, yet somehow you only take issue with other subreddits flagging participation.

LaurensBER 1y ago
Could you be as kind as to point out where I'm _only_ taking issue with the moderation of other subreddits? As you can see in my comment I'm merely listing a few examples.
- hilios 1y ago
  You're listing several examples, including /r/conservative, yet even though this subreddit is widely known (on Reddit) to be a censored echo-chamber, you do not mention this aspect. I find it hard to believe, that this would be a coincidence.
  - LaurensBER 1y ago
    From the HN guidelines: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith Let's aim to keep HN better and more pleasant to use than Reddit;)
    - hilios 1y ago
      I did explain my reasoning. You coincidentally not mentioning /r/conservatives censorship practices, simply doesn't appear plausible, given the context of your comment and demonstrated knowledge of reddit moderating practices.
      - LaurensBER 1y ago
        I disagree with your assessment, if I remember correctly I posted three times on that sub. The HN guidelines are there to improve the quality of the conversation, there's not much to further discuss so I'm going to leave it at this.

testdelacc1 1y ago

/r/AskBrits banned me for pointing out that there are several threads each day about immigration, each tailor made rage bait. Sometimes they’re not even a question. I’ve personally caught a couple of Iranians and Russians brazenly posting such threads at 4am British time (working hours in Tehran) and the moderators did nothing. They simply allow such threads while deleting any thread that goes “is anyone sick of the constant threads about immigration?” These threads generate so much engagement from people of all opinions that it makes the sub appear in people’s feeds as recommended content even if they’re not subscribed to the sub. It gives people the impression that there is only one political subject in the UK that gets any discussion. I don’t know why the moderators of this sub do this, but the effects of their moderation are clear.

themodisonHN 1y ago
On a related note, leaving my gripes with one guy aside, a lot subreddits are also just blatant marketing fronts, with the full blessing of the mods. /u/Turbostrider27 is a shared account between marketing firms. Saying their name in any sub the account is active on will shadow ban your message.
- DiggyJohnson 1y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/user/turbostrider27/ https://www.reddit.com/user/turbostrider27/ That's fascinating. How does an account like this not blatantly violate the TOC for personal or commercial use of Reddit?
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    Reddit wants to make money, which requires keeping advertisers happy. Why do you think r/hailcorporate was killed?
debtta 1y ago
I've often posted on the internet at 4am local time before. How did you establish the posters were Russian or Iranian, other than by time zone? (4am London is working hours for around half the world population.) Not denying that there are people in these countries who want to cause trouble on the internet. But there are many such people in all countries...

ycombinete 1y ago

/interestingasfuck banned me for commenting on /asmongold at some point. Not even for the content. Simply for having interacted with /asmongold. Edit: To be clear I wasn't picked on by anyone. It's a bot they run. This is a blanket ban that /interestingasfuck extends to anyone who has commented/posted on /asmongold, or any subreddit they consider to be right wing (by USA standards).

kevincox 1y ago

It sounds like a large part of the problem is how important a subreddit name is to popularity. If a subreddit has a good obvious name it is going to collect members and activity even if the mods are awful. Competing subreddits will struggle to attract new users as they need some different less-obvious name. I wonder if this could be approached in a way that new subreddits didn't have this disadvantage so that they could compete on mod quality and slowly grow / migrate the community. Of course there are advantages to short unique names like readable links. But it seems that this false authority may not be worth the downsides.

LaurensBER 1y ago
That's an interesting idea! Perhaps intentionally using uuids in the URL instead of slugs and improving the recommendation/search algo (e.g take into account the average post length or cited sources in the ranking) would solve this issue. Main challenge might still be that its very hard to move an existing user base if the moderator(s) blocks all posts about other communities. Perhaps a more democratic moderation system or a system wide rule that disallows moderators from blocking posts about other (competing) subs would work?
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  These are good technical suggestions. The social problem is that ragebait => more money for Reddit.
- guywithahat 1y ago
  Yeah but then you can't easily visit specific subs. When I was younger and didn't have an account, I would just go to the url to view my favorite subs, and uuid's would make it less intuitive. One other option sites like scored.co do is they allow subs to use their own url (like their Trump sub is called patriots.win). The site admins have kind of given up on the site though so I'm not sure if you can still do it, but it seemed like a clever idea.

UpsideDownRide 1y ago

I can throw another example /r/lectures was a really cool place were people shared mostly academic lectures. Mod took over, put the sub in approved posts only and is just doing token approves very rarely without any way to reclaim the sub.

mountainriver 1y ago

I got permanently banned from Reddit for participating in a thread debating the death penalty. In which I wrote one comment suggesting we shouldn’t waste a bunch of court costs on mass shooters who are blatantly guilty. That was considered “instigating violence” lol

quesera 1y ago
[flagged]
- mountainriver 1y ago
  > To be fair, that's an objectively degenerate suggestio You should be a Reddit mod lol This is an "objectively sane" comment that got a lot of upvotes actually
  - quesera 1y ago
    Upvotes on Reddit are not indicative of sanity. Any suggestion to remove due process or the rule of law from governance is objectively degenerate and retrogressive. No matter who you are, you do not want to live in that world.
mrguyorama 1y ago
Depending on how you wrote or worded it, that IS instigating violence. "We should just execute them and save money" is instigating violence. If you aren't willing to spend resources because it's "obvious" to you, you do not care about Justice. Cops always think they got the right guy, and they are regularly blatantly wrong, including for people on death row.
- mountainriver 1y ago
  Talking about procedures and sentencing for a heinous crime isn't instigating violence lol. Is sending people to prison instigating violence? I really expected more from the HN crowd but this place has obviously deteriorated

Aurornis 1y ago

> - If you post on /r/conservative you can expect to receive a bunch of bans from unrelated (popular) subs. Doesn't matter what you posted, being associated with that subs "taints" your account enough for some moderators. You left out the fact that you can’t post to /r/conservative until the moderators there audit your post history and perform an interview with you to confirm your ideology matches theirs. If someone does pass the test they’re allowed to comment. If they make a comment that disagrees with the message the moderators want to push, their commenting privilege is revoked. It’s not a real subreddit. It’s a moderator-curated echo chamber. They run it like a propaganda outlet, only allow approved thought from approved commenters, and ban anyone who steps out of line with the mods. That’s why every thread you view there will have “load more comments” buttons that never load anything: They remove more comments than you’re allowed to see.

docmars 1y ago
Could it be that sharing conservative ideas is against Reddit's community guidelines? There are other subreddits with primarily right or moderate leaning communities and comments in those get deleted all the time with moderator messages saying they risk the entire subreddit getting taken down by Reddit simply for sharing basic conservative views.
- square_usual 1y ago
  I'm sure you can give us examples of these "basic conservative values" that gets entire subreddits banned off a platform run by a libertarian prepper who admires Elon Musk.
- stickfigure 1y ago
  This is not credible without evidence.
  - DiggyJohnson 1y ago
    I can testify this is credible. You can prove this by trying it out yourself.

jmkni 1y ago

Try suggesting on /r/MichaelJackson that he was maybe a little weird about kids, instant ban

criddell 1y ago
I don't really have a problem with that. The scope of the sub is: > Appreciation subreddit dedicated to the life and art of Michael Joe Jackson Criticism of Jackson would be off-topic. Plus it's not like anybody who is a fan of Jackson doesn't know about those allegations and some of the weird things he did. People who feel the need to say he was weird about kids in that subreddit are probably just trying to troll Jackson fans. It's not going to make the subreddit better for fans who are there to celebrate the art and music of Jackson.
mlrtime 1y ago
I'd ban you too. Unless there is something new and news worthy, you'd be trolling.

zahlman 1y ago

I would share my own stories of bans, but they're so ridiculous (including all four of the "strikes" that led to my account ban by the admins) that I wouldn't expect anyone to believe it without evidence, and it all happened many years ago (but I fully expect things are even worse now). Although I do notice that r/science is apparently down to "only" about 1300 moderators. I'm pretty sure they broke 2000 at some point. (The large majority of those have been around for at least 5 years; it seems that the Reddit UI caps the displayed age, because I recognize names from much more than 5 years ago.)

cap11235 1y ago
All these sorts of bans are ridiculous. I got banned from a EU sub because I said my mother was polish, then someone doxxed out more info about me, and then I got criticism for not being a true Pole. This came only from me saying my mother was Polish. Fucking lunatics.

miki123211 1y ago

IMO, Reddit's main problem (and this certainly isn't unique to Reddit) is that it is a registry of names. There can be only one subreddit named r/politics, so whoever gets that name essentially decides how you can talk about politics on Reddit. Same applies to any other subject. R/fishing will always sound more credible than r/fishing2 or r/2wqy4f. If there's some kind of fishing controversy, and the mods of r/fishing only allow one side to speak, that side gains a lot more credibility. The other side can move somewhere else, but that place won't have the credibility associated with r/fishing. Reddit can try to fight this, but as long as subreddits have unique and memorable names instead of IDs, this is going to be a problem and require them to get their hands dirty.

Hobadee 1y ago

I was banned from /r/askaconservative for stating a very mainstream position. Mods told me I was "astroturfing".