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 shadowbannned after posting about politics.
I never called for or celebrated violence, didn’t upvote pictures of Luigi (which they have a STRANGE hard-on for) or any of that. I just posted neutrally-worded opinions.
Shadowbanning is an abusive behavior and Reddit has been about that for well over a decade. On Twitter, you do something they don’t like, they just tell you, “you have to delete this tweet and wait 12 hours” or whatever. On Reddit, your account just gets “weird” with strange error messages. You have to go digging for information on the phenomenon because they don’t display a message or send an email about it.
The cute little aliens are there to paper over the fact that Reddit’s leadership has no concept of user advocacy. You’re just rows in a few tables to them. You’re the product that’s being sold, and as far as they’re concerned that gives you the same rights as any other product on a shelf.
They are still sending me emails with cute little aliens in them, even though my account is hosed. This is how disjointed they are.
Someone else wrote that on Reddit, the users and admins hate each other. I think that’s true.
uusually they shadowban people for being repeat ban evaders, now they are doing it for any reason. thier filters also caught innocent in the crosshairs too.
I had never been banned before.
I doubt that because I’m shadow banned too with just one account. You can look on the shadow ban page (only page shadow banned people can post on) dozens of people get shadow banned every day. I had never been banned before.