PSA
Reddit is censoring upvotes - claiming to be supporting violent content
Per request of AntiSonOfBitchamajig I am resubmitting my previous post for a better title.
Here is the message I've gotten this morning, after upvoting content discussing current economic implications surrounding tariffs. My account has never been flagged previously. Felt it useful to share this new level of censorship.
Will need to be hosted outside of the US. I've a feeling that this is just the start; soon, it could end up including content that otherwise shows disapproval of current events in the US, or reporting on things the government wants to keep on the downlow.
(edit)
Looks like there are a couple on Lemmy (thanks to u/eamonkey420 for recommending there). It looks like it has a great UI for conversation collapsing (unlike Bluesky). Only thing, is JFC!!! That Captcha for signup is fucking brutal on my eyes. Took almost a dozen refreshes to get something I managed to get right.
After signing up (good luck with the captcha!), it should be as easy as joining a community. You can search for them here: Lemmy Explorer
I linked a couple Prepper ones above that I'm going to joining once I'm cleared to log in. Same username as here.
One thing to note, is that approval to sign up appears to take a long time. Looks like it is done manually? I guess I'm a bit spoiled by nearly instantaneous automated approvals, but looking into it, it can take a few hours. Sign up now, and I guess show patience! Resolved. User error. Logged in and made a post to the PrepperIntel community.
It needs to be decentralized. This place has been sliding downhill fast since it went public. Opened my first account a decade ago and the last few months I find myself addicted in a way I’ve never been, like they’ve intensified the algorithm. It’s starting to remind me of Facebook. I’m sad no one has developed something already because I love this place and always have but I’m afraid I’ll have to delete it soon too.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed a drastic change in the algorithm the last few months. A LOT more incendiary and divisive content is being pushed.
Is there some kind of guide for it? I'm feeling my middle aged mom years right now and having flashbacks of trying to figure out coding for MySpace. Lol I'm not that tech savvy.
I felt the same even though I’m 41 and figured out how the whole internet works in one afternoon back in ‘96! The layout isn’t as polished and intuitive, but I was able to create an account pretty easily after about ten minutes of trial and error. Just don’t base the process off of the streamlining of Reddit and it’s ultimately pretty simple.
I still use redditisfun and my front page is still only the communities I subscribe to. When I use the official app it is always throwing bullshit in there I don't want to see
Addicted because of so much real time/current info? Events are coming across quicker - news groups are going to have to run crap past an attorney manager if it’s sensitive? Or risk a WH ban or lawsuit? Maybe that’s the take here. Already on radar.
ve a feeling that this is just the start; soon, it could end up including content that otherwise shows disapproval of current events in the US, or reporting on things the government wants to keep on the downlow.
What's the point in making it so complicated? That's why it hasn't caught on. Users don't want to fuck around with instances and servers. They just want to sign up and post.
Yeah that's why it'll never take off. Just make a reddit hosted outside the US and be ready to take on the "refugees". People can barely figure this format out (which was one of the biggest complaints about reddit 10 years ago).
The U.S. is trying to control what emotions and sentiment are allowed. Giving upvotes about a SUSPECT of a crime against a healthcare CEO, which hasn’t even had a guilty verdict, is now somehow against the rules?
Reddit isn’t even supporting innocent until proven guilty here. Just right to terms of service and banning users left and right to support a mainstream approved narrative.
Not joking, I am genuinely planning on making an app similar to Reddit, but 100% based on everything prepper related, including intel. If anybody knows Python (especially in making APIs with Flask and GUIs with Kivy) and wants to help, DM me.
USENET is the way. Mastodon &c are recent attempts at a modernized analogue, b/c people want pictures and clicky-clicky ux and don't want to deal with curses slrn/tin: but NNTP clients allowed FAR BETTER control of your own feeds w/ subscriptions, kill-rings, &c. Plus the decentralized store-and-forward setup, while not as real-time back in the day, was resilient and freedom-friendly (although too much so, because... eternal september, wild west, &c until it turned into a cesspull of binaries and warez and was slowly dropped by ISPs, uni's, and eventually commercial hosting)
edit: HOWEVER... I'd love to see an NNTP like text-only store-and forward system running over a mix of MESHTASTIC and HF-ALE
Dude they bounce you from subs and don’t even tell you now. There’s MULTIPLE subs I’ve been a part of forever. Now I can’t comment. But I was never told why. Never told I was banned. Just no ability to participate with no warning.
You’re effectively “shadow banned”, but also not. They can use their subs automod to filter out anything you comment so that no one else sees it. You wouldn’t even know it’s happening, unless you login with a separate account and look for your comments, which you will not see.
So, that’s the thing. There is a true shadow banned state, and then there’s what I described where there’s nothing wrong with your account, the sub mods are just actively filtering you specifically. It’s weird too, because they aren’t obligated to tell you a damn thing about it if you ask.
That's how YouTube does it. They shadow ban and remove comments constantly, but it doesn't tell you. On your screen, it will still appear that your comment is up. But if you log out and check, surprise surprise, no comment.
My understanding is that mods can put you in a mode where each comment has to be approved by one of them.
But it is really just shadow banning with extra steps.
I know what dead internet theory is, but I never thought it would be the sites themselves committing the crime. Although that does make sense in a way as to how it comes to full fruition.
It’s fucking weird and part of what makes this place suck.
For the most part I think Reddit is one of my favorite places on the interwebs. But shit like that is what makes it suck. If you can’t tell me what rule I broke, or why, then you’re being just as shitty as the people you complain about.
I was recently banned from r/pics and r/interestingasfuck for commenting in r/neofeudalism and r/Jordan_Peterson_Memes, most likely arguing with some total idiot. Reddit has sent me there, the algorithm sends me this crap all the time. I engage with it and now I'm banned from r/pics and r/interestingasfuck like what the hell? That don't make sense.
Woah, this is way worse than it seems. I made a comment to you talking about my related experience and it was auto removed with no notification. I can see it in my history but if I open the comment in an incognito tab, it's not there.
Look at how they did it during Vietnam, the Red Scare, WWII and every other time in history before the Internet. Meet people who live near you and work with you, talk to people at your schools and colleges, talk about how they're feeling, their worries, use that to connect and then go from there. Social media has been great at facilitating connections, but we have lost the art of speaking to people face to face and sustaining those relationships organically. Now it's looking like we won't have the choice.
It's so stupid. Completely ignoring the world we live on, which in a large part is propped up by violence and killing. But yeah delude ourselves into thinking the most of our concerns is fucking Luigi of all people. The US sends bombs for Israel to drop fire on children but yeah, Luigi is obscene.
To quote burroughs
"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games."
What about Luiqi Maqione? They can't catch all variations. Muigi Lagione. Looeegi Or Benjamin Cumberbatch style it up lupeechy macaroni. Or green hat L. They cannot stop anyone from talking about him.
I noticed a strange shift a couple days ago. Disappearing posts, posts that would typically have plenty of upvotes had few….
I posted a reply to a post, I could see it but my daughter could not. It was if I had never posted. It was not violent, inciting violence or mentioning anything of the sort. It was on the lie Trump told about the Honda factory agreeing to set up some big new plant in Indiana. (Honda itself called out the lie).
Reddit got weird the day after the first 50501 protest, at least that's the first day I noticed glitches and saw reports of posts getting removed. So, starting on Feb 6, is when I've noticed changes.
This is happening all over the internet. Google has suddenly gone to shit, you can't find anything that isn't trending or a generic AI-authored article any more. X has banned "negativity" for the sake of censorship and is full of fake (but verified) accounts. Facebook is straight up adding bots to their own platform. Even 4chan is swamped with bots masquerading as humans to try and create false consensus.
Reality is being fabricated and the big tech companies are all in on it. If you don't want to consume endless propaganda, it's about time to abandon the mainstream internet entirely.
The public release of GPT-4 basically was the final nail in the coffin - most content is just LLM generated propaganda/disinformation farms and even LLM agents mass upvote specific content theyre tuned to in order to drive specific agendas
That honestly might even be why reddit is banning for content upvoting now, to crack down on the upvote bots
Wide, a ton of controls have been put up after Jan 20th due to bots and influx. Just a few mods here take down a ton of "hateful" comments daily, even started banning people at higher rates.
I know they’re being overly sensitive, and overly generous with the “harassment” bans. I caught a harassment ban recently, which was comical since my reply was nicer than the comment I replied to, and they received nothing. I guess it comes down to who reports who the fastest.
I honestly think its algo based, they look at general account history with consideration in your vote rates, times, account age, etc. You trigger too many reports it knocks ya.
Oh yeah, I get it. I actually mod a few subs, so I see what you’re talking about. What irks me is how they have so much of it is automated, with no one reviewing it unless you appeal, which could take longer than the ban period. Users are way too quick to get their feelings hurt, and start sending harassment reports, when all you did was respond in kind.
I already got one for talking about reactions I might have to a crime. It was a heinous crime, and so far unpunished. I only said what I thought I'd do were I the sister of the victim. It really is punishment for Thought Crime. After 5 years on Reddit, helping my community navigate COVID, and the Big Heads are threatening to take my only link to my communities online away for even suggesting...
This could be a Freedom of Speech issue. They could be taken to court.
Worst part is that I’ve upvoted things by accident just cause I’m scrolling and tap to stop the scroll, so now I’m wondering if I’m going to get a warning for something I didn’t even mean to upvote. And the poor mods in any mario/Nintendo related subreddit are going to get like 10x the amount of flags because “Luigi” is a flagged word
I also got a warning last week before this policy was widely shared. I "appealed it" and asked what the offending content was and they couldn't tell me but I'm pretty sure I compared fElon to a pile of pooty in r/law. The comment was gone and no one explained what I did wrong.
What they're doing is creating a narrative control mechanism where only the "approved" posts get seen by the public, the ones that they also use bot upvotes on. You may have noticed it over the last year, but certain posts would get thousands of upvotes within an hour or two of posting, and when you look at the "New" comments on the posts half of them are negative (indicating negative public sentiment while the bots increase the post visibility using upvotes).
That was my feeling too. I’m here because it’s not authoritarian yet. I left the other places. There needs to be a distinction between private speech and public speech.
i got banned once for posting israeli flag as a jewish guy in a flag threat for "baiting"?
then reported them got unbanned and banned again without me posting anything for "participation in other subreddits" wtf.
OP, as I said in your first post, go to http://old.reddit.com, look at you profile and look at the Upvote tab. It would be very useful to understand what might be triggering this.
Dollars to doughnuts it wouldn't hit r conservative users since they would read that post title and say trans people are being dictators by deciding what pronpuns they want to identify as.
After Elon said he would welcome white people from South Africa into the US as “victims of racism” I posted sarcastically “yes, because white people were the real victims of apartheid”.
Got a 7 day account ban. Wonder if I will get a permanent ban for repeating it now.
I do think the muskrat team has figured out a way to game the system so as to algorithmically punish any criticism of him. Even to the point of just liking another “negative” post. I got banned from Reddit a few months ago for saying something overtly negative about him. So it’s either Reddit or more likely muskrat bots that are behind this.
Yeah, I actually got that vibe as well when I got the warning. I didn't think it was a bot but I definitely felt like someone was watching specifically my fElon content, which is why I say his name like that now.
Now that the title thing is out of the way, guys, reddit as a company is getting serious about general "hate" on the site.
Pick a buzz word... it gets removed, then the huge escalation here recently as seen with OP's issue and the post they put out yesterday.
You're not going to easily fool the filters reddit has been putting up, for curse words, political names, and buzzwords. Trying to stab at a person or group usually results in a report button, reddit the company gets that info too and checks it automatically.
Remaking new accounts doesn't work well either, they have a whole system to match things up in several ways. I see those warnings for a few of you on here just as a mod.
The only thing I can tell you guys is to choose your wording carefully and try to be level headed in conversation. Lashing out isn't going to go anywhere but a "removed" file with your username attached to it as a footnote log of all the times your comments have been removed, all automatically, they see it all. Really makes one think how much other data they've collected over the years.
An even better solution is to start using a service not hosted in the US where users’ expressions isn’t curtailed by corporate risk management, which is always going to favor the shareholder.
I had three warnings within like a six hour window all with broken links to the content that was supposedly rule breaking. I called all three out after the third earned me a ban for three days. I bitched out the mods and Reddit and they reversed the ban 😂. Something is definitely fucky here. I've never had a ban in the 13+ years of using this site.
What do you expect? They want to control the narrative when does not align with their ideology and punish those that they feel is a threat to it. So much for "free speech". /s
They want to have total control. FUCK THE SYSTEM! I will not watch quietly, as this world destroys my ability to fed and shelter my family. Reddit doesn’t fed my children.
I got suspended for a week, and as soon as it was over, I was permabanned without ANY explanation.
So I filed an appeal...and after 67 days without a response from the admins I just said fuck it and made a new account.
The appeals process is functionally useless if it takes SEVERAL MONTHS to get a reply. And if the admins don't care enough to manage their own website, fuck em and their rules.
I've received 2 bans for apparently inciting violence or harassment and Reddit. Reddit sent me links that defined what both of those were as defined by them, and neither of my comments fit the description (and I definitely was not harassing or inciting violence). I appealed and it was upheld anyways.
After that, I determined that there is a lot of censorship happening on this platform to support certain world views, specifically the Orange Man.
This morning I got a warning for suggesting that I'd defend my country from an illegal invasion. As a reminder, a war of aggression is a war crime. War criminals get executed. Yeah, I said it.
I am free. I have an inherent right to self defence, regardless of what any government or corporation wants to tell me. I also have an obligation to defend my family and my neighbours.
To anyone who disagrees with me, gargle my balls. Don't be complicit you cowards.
What they consider violent is also extremely unclear. I got a warning and my comment deleted and I have ZERO idea what it could have been in relation to. I asked them to show me the comment and they wouldn't.
I made a joke comment on a post in r/wow yesterday about raiding a certain building but I meant it in warcraft terms of like a warcraft raid. It was a joke and the post itself was a political one already. They deleted it and I got a warning. But when conservatives talk about J6? Crickets.
My understanding of reddiquette is that you upvote content that "advances the discussion" and downvote comments that are off-topic or derail the discussion. An upvote is not a whole-hearted endorsement of the views expressed in a post or comment. An upvote simply advances the discussion.
The fact that they're doing this should scare the hell out of everyone, because it also means they're making lists of "bad" Redditors which can be parsed at a later time by someone (who?) to see if anyone needs "following up" on in social media or perhaps even real life. Gotta keep that social score high, fellow Redditors!
Ah, censorship has arrived. Inconvenient posts will no longer get the attention to rise to the top.
I bet this "violent content" will only be identified when it concerns certain people in certain US governments.
If this goes through the way I fear it will, it's over.
Reddit has the feel of being taken over by ai/bots. I can’t prove it; it just feels that way. Like I start r/fireplaces and all of a sudden there’s a post about Trump having a bad natural gas policy. Or bitching about a meeting with a foreign leader and there is a fireplace in the photo. Feels like it’s mass-produced political propaganda designed to technically be on topic but not in the spirit of the sub. (Not accusing this sub). I may start a few just as a test.
But people are too innocent to process and evaluate information themselves. 🥺
Seriously though, I still think the censorship causes more harm than good. You could stick every troll farm on Earth on here and they still could not keep up with the overall honest users’ output. Bottling up negative sentiments, that should help! It’s all about control.
Be prepared for this app to become the next twitter. The amount of pressure and influence Trump and his fascist friends have and will have in the future will likely overcome any existing barriers.
I have been temporarily banned in the last two weeks for suggesting Fascists in the public realm should eat dirt. Says much, IMHO, about the state of Reddit.
851
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25
Time for someone to make a reddit alternative.