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.
If you are banned permanently, are you still able to edit or at least delete your existing comments or is it too late for that?
I told Nazis to go kill themselves. Then made multiple Krasnov accounts. All banned and now perm banned unless I use VPN. It was time to go, fuck that place. Welcome home.
I wish more people would travel here. We need people to build up the communities and interact with content. It’s refreshing to see comments under limited moderation, or moderation that actually targets the right kind of hate speech: the powerful punching down.
I only visit Reddit when someone here links to it, since I’m assuming the comments are relevant, or if I’m doing a Google search and the answer is in a Reddit comment.
Reddit is dying from the top down. People migrating away would show billionaires that they don’t control us.
top down, and INSIDE out, they were rottening from the core before it became top down.
I think what would help in this would be more options for apps (which there are thankfully) but also an easy to read guide on how this all works and how to sign up and get on board. It’s complexity vague in this effort. Which does weed out the certain kind of people who aren’t tech savvy. But it would help its numbers quite a bit.
This is my first comment to say I am also a reddit refugee!
its clear reddit is allowing right wing/russian trolls to astroturf left leaning comments, any criticism is usually met with an increased sensitivity of thier “comment removal, karma, spam filters” its funny they encourage reporting, but hate responding to these reports if you do it too many times, it was instant temp ban which cascaded in banning in all accounts.
welcome 🫂
Thanks! I’ve been on reddit for 11 years and I haven’t been active on it for a month. Things are changing and I don’t feel good about it :/
You’ll be happy to know that lemmy’s monthly active user count has grown ~20% in the last month.
I think Lemmy is not super likable or usable. It tries to be something it can’t be imo.
It would be better to just use the old style forums again, one niche topic/website style, and not a conglomerate. Or just use mass social media if that’s what you want, on a place like BlueSky or Substack with mostly consistent and understandable content moderation.
I haven’t had that experience. I barely understand how Lemmy works but this app I use makes it function like Reddit. I can’t even tell the difference, day to day, but vaguely understand that if the “country” my account is on starts to get weird, I can emigrate elsewhere.
All I can do is extend my sympathies, and tell you that you’re better off in the long run. Most people here don’t like corporate social media because of situations like yours.
Don’t worry about profanity. People swear all the time and don’t mark their posts.
I find it kind of psychologically interesting how many reddifugees self censor, either directly or through obscuring names and events. That site’s moderation is seriously screwing people up.
i had to self-cesor race before and after covid. apparently calling someone black, or Demographic was justification for a ban, they think calling african americans a different name what it suppose to be is racist. its so sensitive now, other sites are doing this(forums)
It’s so relaxing when you know that you don’t have the sword of Damocles hanging over you
I received a warning and my comment got deleted by Reddit. And after the news about potentially getting banned for upvoting specific content, I decided enough was enough, I deleted my account which I’ve had for 12 years.
agreed, its a matter of time anyways people are going to get banned fot he most preposterous thing. getting permaban from the site after a temp ban, a shadowban out of nowhere that doesnt make sense. usually shadowbanned were reserved for repeat ban site wide-evaders, but its banning anyone for the slightest incident.
I received a warning 30 days ago that I didn’t notice and saw a permanent ban on my account today. Kind of a relief actually to have an excuse to get out of that hellhole.
This is the beginning of the downfall of reddit.
Sad to see the decline
Also here after a reddit ban. Mine was also politically motivated.
I watched admins remove a comment that was not violent, no profanity, nothing like that. The offense: the commenter described what “black-bagging” was, in reference to the immigrants being abducted around the country. Someone asked what “black-bagging” meant, he replied with one sentence just explaining the meaning of the term, comment nuked within five minutes.
I then told this story in another comment in another thread. Didn’t say shit about Musk or Trump. Just told the story of how reddit admins wouldn’t let this guy explain what black-bagging meant.
Permanent ban within one hour for “ban evasion.” Never been banned prior. It was my first and last reddit ban.
Fuck spez, fuck reddit, fuck the rest of em all.
looks like a they are quashing any anti-musk and trump sentiment on reddit, any attempts to report them can also result in a ban too. they definitely dont want what musk and trump are doing being discussed in reddit in serious manny, we can see a proportional response from reddit when trump and musk did something, and Musk also recently complained to reddit they need to censor people more.
It’s filled me with such joy (schadenfreude?) watching their stock drop the past couple months.
Welcome weary traveler!
As lemmy’s self-designated High Corvid of Progressivity, I extend to you the traditional Fediversal blessing of:
remember kids:
A place in heaven is reserved for those who speak truth to power
Luigi ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Permabanned for asking what Eisenhower would do if he was present at a Nazi march in Wisconsin and someone handed him a machine gun.
Apparently, impossible hypotheticals (Eisenhower is long dead) intended as a commentary on the fascist shift of the republican party (Eisenhower was a republican) are advocating violence. Eisenhower famously led efforts to kill Nazis.
So here I am.
Part of me wants to engage in ban evasion and just post hate all over reddit to make it worse. What are they going to do? Ban me? Too lazy to bother though.
Ridiculous. Especially when you consider the other content that is perfectly acceptable. Doesn’t help that a very small number of mods control the majority of the subs now. I feel you on the hate-posting. I’m inclined to do the same thing because of the one-sided nature of the ban and my need to express my displeasure and sense of injustice.
I was perma-banned because I made a joke about chucking a rock through the windshield of a literal, out-and-proud-capital-N Nazi.
Didn’t make any appeals because it was time to leave. I spent waaaay too much time on that stupid site and now I’m starting to finally feel free of the outrage/affirmation addiction.
Things have gotten pretty weird in the last few months. I got a warning and a deleted comment several months ago because there was a debate in some random Colorado sub on what to do about a person living downtown who kept putting a swastika in their apartment window. They lived above a popular local business and it was causing issues. I said something about using a slingshot to solve the problem. I hear you on the time spent on there. After deleting the app from my phone, it really hit home just how much I was compulsively checking it throughout the day.
Same on that last sentiment, dude. The difference in my own temperament has been surprisingly noteworthy since leaving. It took being banned for me to realize how emotionally dependant I had bec9me on their algorithm.
I’m still pissed about why I was banned, but I am ultimately glad to have left. The bump in my productivity has also been noteworthy. My home hasn’t been this clean in a long while lol
I have said all kinds of nasty things there about GropenFührer…I mean inmate #P01135809 and other than a few downvotes, nothing. Maybe it’s a “no warning” kind of thing?
I really liked Reddit, getting a lot of value out of the content posted there by people. And I met some cool people through it.
I never got banned from it myself, but as time went on it was very clear that the company in charge of the platform was not steering things in a good direction, and was not responsible for the value I liked. They just captured the value by being the place where people posted. They really drove that point home when they locked off the API, and I completely quit Reddit at that point, migrating to Lemmy instead.
I definitely feel that Lemmy doesn’t have as much value collected on it yet compared to Reddit. There’s just not as many people posting and generating that value. But, it is free of that sort of draconian control that Reddit has. Not just temporarily free, as a favor from venture capital to draw people in. Permanently free. So, if we build up the value of Lemmy by having more people post here, we will be able to enjoy that value free from the corpo BS.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. :P
I noticed a big difference after they cut off the API. I’ve only been on Lemmy a few days, but I feel the same way about the amount of content. Hopefully more and more people will migrate here as reddit continues their nonsense. It’s a shame to see what it has become.
Been on Lemmy from Reddit for over a year. Really don’t miss it, except for a few niche communities.
I’ve been here since the third party app culling and it’s been steadily growing I think from my anecdotal feels when using it. It definitely has a long way to go to replace what reddit was, but hopefully it just keeps growing bit by bit. I see posts like yours frequently these days so you’re definitely not the only one leaving.
I’d guess a good bit of us used to almost entirely browse reddit through a third party app (me with Sync) and for various reasons didn’t capitulate, been on Lemmy since and have vastly increased my time with Linux as a result xD
Permabanned for saying evil shit about Russians, a few times. Funny thing is how fast they would be on negative comments about Russia.
And BTW, Russians can die in a fucking fire. Lived under threat of nuclear annihilation for my entire childhood, and now the filthy gangsters are fucking with, and have ruined, American politics.
One of my accounts banned for “my Lu Ouija board spelled CEO. What’s that mean?”
Or something along those lines.
Haven’t been back since. Timeline is essentially accurate to my baby lemmy face here^
