On r/RedditSafety, Reddit admin “worstnerd” posts:
Warning users that upvote violent content
Today we are rolling out a new (sort of) enforcement action across the site. Historically, the only person actioned for posting violating content was the user who posted the content. The Reddit ecosystem relies on engaged users to downvote bad content and report potentially violative content. This not only minimizes the distribution of the bad content, but it also ensures that the bad content is more likely to be removed. On the other hand, upvoting bad or violating content interferes with this system.
So, starting today, users who, within a certain timeframe, upvote several pieces of content banned for violating our policies will begin to receive a warning. We have done this in the past for quarantined communities and found that it did help to reduce exposure to bad content, so we are experimenting with this sitewide. This will begin with users who are upvoting violent content, but we may consider expanding this in the future. In addition, while this is currently “warn only,” we will consider adding additional actions down the road.
We know that the culture of a community is not just what gets posted, but what is engaged with. Voting comes with responsibility. This will have no impact on the vast majority of users as most already downvote or report abusive content. It is everyone’s collective responsibility to ensure that our ecosystem is healthy and that there is no tolerance for abuse on the site.
Some users see this as a reaction to the recent controversy surrounding Luigi Mangione and the fatal shooting of the UnitedHeathCare CEO. There are concerns that this new system (which mods are speculating to be AI-driven) has potential for abuse and censorship, especially given the current vagueness of what is considered a “violent” comment or post.
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Reactions on RedditSafety:
- I see the benefit, but could it be possible this makes people paranoid about voting? Especially to be safe when they’re not sure if it counts.
- This is exactly what will happen, given Reddit has developed a recent habit of removing a bunch of things which don’t violate rules. The chilling effect isn’t a mistake, it’s the intent.
- They’re almost certainly looking to chill political dissent or calls for armed protest that they clearly feel is likely and imminent at some point in the future. Laying the groundwork to ban and kill off accounts for voting isn’t something you do if you aren’t aware there’s a growing issue. This isn’t about curbing vote manipulation, it’s about preventing growing anger and discontent from bubbling over into a repeat of the Unitedhealthcare CEO getting popped in NYC. They’re seeing a clear sentiment shift and want to stamp it out, not through moderation but through punishing people who may agree with the sentiment. This is groundwork for abuse.
- [ADMIN] Yeah, this would be an unacceptable side effect, which is why we want to monitor this closely and ramp it up thoughtfully
- and you won’t do that regardless. You admins are never careful, and you dont really need to be because all you care about are your corporate overlords, and know that reddit will continue regardless. You’ve purged so many communities, individuals, etc, to the order of literal thousands and yet reddit still continues. Mods try to blackout in protest and you coup them and reinstall them with people who capitulate to the corporate overlords; and when people try to remove their own content in protest, which should be their own right to do, you reverse the edits. You dont care because you dont have to, there is literally no consequence ever for your actions because you refuse to allow there to be.
- Too bad you absolutely failed at this already.
- Don’t give us that bullshit. We all know this will go poorly and result in false warnings/bans and the censorship of content that your shareholders dislike.
- Could you please clarify exactly how you define “violent content”? Will I get warned for upvoting an anime fight scene clip just because it portrays violence? What about upvoting war footages? There are several subreddits dedicated to sharing combat/war footages.
- Allow me to clarify. The same poorly designed and thought out processes that suspend mods who report vote abuse, that suspend mods in modmail for responding to users who post violent content, that remove innocuous content all over the site will now be suspending you for your votes on the site.
- The lack of transparency is a feature, not a bug. You will be punished as they see fit, if you like what they don’t like. Then there will be feigned surprise when Reddit continues to go downhill.
- They keep it vague so they can make it whatever they want it to be at the time. I said I’d stand by and let Elon die if given the chance. Banned.
- [ADMIN] It will only be for content that is banned for violating our policy. Im intentionally not defining the threshold or timeline. 1. I don’t want people attempting to game this somehow. 2. They may change.
- So does this impact users in r/publicfreakout upvoting a comment that says something like “they deserved that” under a video where someone gets hurt? This really seems like it’ll affect a ton of content in subs like r/instantkarma, or any sub about topics like bad drivers, or any video of someone doing something dangerous or risky, or any comment mentioning Luigi? Punishing people for voting seems like a terrible way to enforce content guidelines. Especially when you don’t want to define the threshold in this post. What percentage of the comments in this post of a nazi getting punched in the face should I not vote on? Anything that supports or justifies him getting punched? Or this post where many or most of the comments are in support of someone fighting back against a bully?
- Hi. So, you won’t tell people the rules but will warn them about breaking the rules, of which they will have no idea why some upvotes did not break the invisible rules, but others did? I am skeptical that you have thought this through in any way whatsoever. If anything this seems like a tailor-made way to chill content you, Reddit, personally disagree with without having to stand by any stated guidelines by which you do it.
- How can one follow the rules without a full understanding of said rules? This is just a blanket cover to allow you folks to silence anyone you choose.
- “They may change” yeah, that’s not fucking comforting.
- So you’re creating a rule but won’t actually explain how the rule works so that people can at least try to properly follow the rule, all because you don’t want people to “game it?” Dude, come on. That’s stupid as all fuck.
- Thanks u / worstnerd for being the admin that gets me to leave Reddit.
- Hey, how about you get fucked. […] If the vast majority of common people support Luigi that’s a fundamental societal problem and government problem, not a platform moderation problem.
- This will disproportionately affect the Canadian audience of reddit, as we are being threatened by YOUR government; reddit’s government. How can we discuss enlisting in our Canadian armed forces, or preparing tools to defend our homes, to only be mass flagged by pro-annexation chuds — some of whom I would presume are foreign/non-NOAM instigators? A very dark day for reddit; for a website I feel I have been in a toxic relationship with since 2019-21.
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On PublicFreakout, the sub’s moderator shares the admin’s message with the note:
“Mind how you are voting because Reddit is about to start spanking folks for votes”
- we shall now punish you for seeing something we showed you. Shame on you.
- Shit I accidentally liked a rule 34 spez porn. Will I be banned?
- I think it’s safest if we don’t engage with anything via comment or upvote any more. It’s what they want.
- I’m gonna upvote whatever the fuck I want. Get bent u / Spez
- Are Luigi gifs still safe?
- [MOD] Unfortunately they are not.
- Sign up for the Digg reboot while it’s still in early access.
- I came from Digg and back to Digg I go.
- Fuck Spez… And that u / WorstNerd fuck.
- Isn’t this a bit of an overreaction? I read the release, and it didn’t seem too draconian.
- Yes yes we all know the rules are enforced completely fairly on Reddit at all times.
- So because rules are sometimes enforced unfairly, there should be no rules?
- > I don’t think anybody is saying that. That seems like something that you made up in your own head
- >> Indeed. Everything you said was also made up in your head. That is how language and conversations work. /s
- Yes yes we all know the rules are enforced completely fairly on Reddit at all times.
At least some users are already receiving warnings:
- So if I upvote a post on this sub that shows a fistfight, I can be banned? Cool cool. Edit: I just got a warning that I am breaking reddit rules with this post. This is wiiiild.
- [MOD] The fuck? Did you really get a warning? Please modmail us, that is unacceptable.
The PublicFreakout moderator pledges to stand by their users, at least in the case of one frequently reposted video of a Nazi getting punched…
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In r / cincinnati :
- [MOD] Please note - if you get a warning due to this new “feature”, it is Reddit, not the mod team taking action. There are no clear guidelines on how this is implemented, probably through the AI tools that never, ever make a mistake.
- I hope Elon Musk has a good time. I hope Donald Trump has a good time. I hope Warren Davidson, Thomas Massie, Mike Dewine, Jim LaRose, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg all have a good time.
- I mean, this was bound to happen with the way Reddit was being used to propagate violent and terroristic rhetoric. All with the complicity of certain subs’ mod teams. Do people really think they can encourage doing harm to public officials without the DoJ or corporate players taking notice? It’s relatively easy to express your opinions and displeasure without crossing that line. It just takes a little bit of self discipline.
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Several anti Elon Musk subreddits apparently connect this with the recent Reddit drama involving Musk that got WhitePeopleTwitter banned:
Your new president turned his gaze on reddit, now they’re changing policies to escape his wrath
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Full list of other subreddits that have shared the admin’s post
I got my three day ban today. For threatening violence? What violence did I threaten you may ask?
Well I said that on a post that if you see a hammerhead worms and you know its invasive you should put it in a bottle of bleach.
Bad girl here threatening violence against invasive flatworms. Ban note. Worm in question and my appeal which is ridiculous
I tried promoting lemmy with a throwaway account using temp mail and got shadowbanned immediately. Oh well
Is the soul reason I’m here and today is my first day. I’m still gonna use imgur though
Same man saw that and instantly jumped ship
Welcome both! A few pointers to help you settle in
Feel free if you have any questions
sole see, it’s just like reddit.
Welcome! If you’re finding the interface a bit clunky, try this: https://a.lemmy.world
I like catbox.moe myself!
I received one of these fucking warnings!
Been on reddit for fourteen goddamned years, but this is the thing that has finally gotten me off board for good.
Reddit is dead.
deleted by creator
There’s a story from Soviet Russia.
A bunch of politicians are in the Kremlin and Stalin is giving a speech outlining some new policy. One politician stands up and angrily yells out- “Stalin! This is wrong! I cannot support this measure”. Everyone gasps and looks at him.
Quickly, another politician stands up and replies “Comrade! Don’t you know? You cannot say that Stalin is incorrect! We do not do that here.”
Stalin ignores these outbursts, tells everyone to settle down and continues the speech.
Of course, this being Stalinist Russia, the man who disagreed with Stalin gets quietly sent to the gulag for a couple of years to learn his lesson.
The second man, however, gets sent to the gulag for 20 years and doesn’t come out until he is an old man.
What’s the moral of the story? Implicit censorship is so much more powerful than explicit censorship. This is reddit goal. Create an air where people self-regulate their speech. The key is not to say it out loud. It needs to be vague and amorphous and ambiguous.
Your video is in violation of the Community Guidelines
This reminds me of a story told to me by the Ukrainian Master Accordionist Leonid Nosov twenty five years ago when he was my landlord.
Leonid had grown up under the communist regime:
“They would come every month, the party bosses. And they would tell us to do this and not to do that and we would listen very closely but never ask questions. Just nod. Just smile. Thank the boss. Then go back to doing what needed doing. If you don’t understand this, then everyone in town would yell at you when the bosses were gone. Because if you don’t stay quiet, then they take you away, and then maybe you tell the bosses what everyone is really doing.”
I’ve found that this to be good advice in most corporate settings as well.
I think a lot of people should pay attention and get ready to live like the Slavs did under the Soviets. We might be heading towards a similar period in the US, I think.
This is exactly how my last job was… We’d just smile and nod while boss talked about unhinged solutions to problems that didn’t exist. We’d then spend the next week or so subtly trying to extract the perceived problem and intent of the request, find a proper solution, and never tell him what we were actually doing just that the thing he wanted is getting resolved. It all had to be very hush hush to prevent him from stepping in and fucking it all up
Wow, you really worked for Elon?
yeah, letting libs read any theory, even something as mild as foucault, was a fucking mistake.
It’s so tiresome to read people regurgitating 50s era John Bircher agitprop that was churned out by the same folks lynching Emitt Till and Michael Donald.
One of my favorite old “Soviet” jokes is about a CIA agent and a KGB agent sharing a drink at a bar in Berlin.
The CIA agent says “We Americans are always so impressed with Soviet propaganda. You can get so many people from so many countries and in so many languages to believe the exact same things. Incredible.”
The KGB smiles and drinks, then responds “Thank you. But the things you get people to believe are truly incredible. We can’t hold a candle to the America propagandists.”
The CIA agent sputters in indignantion before relying “Nonsense! Americans don’t use propaganda!”
The KGB agent just laughs and finishes his drink.
no but see it’s not propaganda if it validates my worldview.
How many time does Reddit need “wake up”? It’s a fucking trash community with the same five news articles getting reposted per day. The stories are so obviously “AI” that anyone reading and believing them has clearly lost their last ability for critical thinking. It’s a shell of its former self. We’re in the end stage of the internet that many of us grew up with.
Reddit wants you to cut back on using their platform. I highly recommend alternatives. I, however, might be biased.
There were comments jokingly considering that Digg is trying to come back. And I’m bummed nobody mentioned Lemmy. (And I don’t have a Reddit anymore after leaving)
People are recommending Lemmy. It’s how I found this site literally today. It may not be a massive flood of accounts, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back for some of us.
Welcome! I think you’ll find the community is a lot more pleasant when there isn’t a capitalist algorithm shoveling all the controversial idiots onto your feed!
So far, I’ve been really enjoying it. It really feels like the type of site Reddit used to be, without the shitlord CEO and MBAs.
Pretty much!
Also, you can get really excited on a much smaller scale. Four hundred upvotes? That’s viral madness on Lemmy!
i have been looking to no avail
Good news… You’re already there!
W…wait… this isn’t Reddit!? 😱
Is this being rolled out for Luigi? This feels like it’s being rolled out for Luigi.
Luigi represents the biggest possible threat to the established order. You can win a war, crush a revolution, and even enslave a people, but it doesn’t change the basic math:
A lone gunman can be just as powerful as any CEO, politician, or king in the right moment.
That’s the real message that they’re trying to suppress, because they know he’s going to have copycats as they tighten the noose on the working class.
Anti Luigi content suppression is first time where Americans as body of people finally realized how controlled ALL media is …
Shit even fedi very mods were suppressing it while blaming server owners for it which turned out to be a fat lie…
Luigi is a scapeboat. There is little evidence he did anything.
A scapeboat?
Typo. Leaving it there though because its funny.
Upvoting/downvoting history is a goldmine in terms of both marketing and surveillance. Every user with over a year of organic activity is a goldmine. Maybe you’ve never ever posted a single controversial opinion online. But you might have upvoted someone else’s - BAM, on a list. Or rather, category I assume. Those innocuous clicks reveal a lot more about you than you think. That information WILL be used against you. If you’re lucky, only to try and sell you shit you don’t need. If unlucky…
…you just gave this guy an upvote, and when @Kyrgizion and I head off to the gulag, you’ll be next on the list.
EDIT: wait, forgot we were on lemmy. We’ve got some breathing room until Trump invades the EU.
Yeah, to think that the CIA or other gov agencies don’t have all this info would be naive. Snowden showed us some of the extent of private info gathering.
It’s not certain, and there’s also the work and energy to analyze this huge amount of data, but we should cautiously assume they have everything.
And with advancements in AI it will become increasingly easier to parse the data.
Very dystopian.
Can’t Lemmy instances access this data as well for upvotes/downvotes? Instsnces dint display it by default, but couldn’t a government actor set up an instance and then collect all of this data?
Open a post in friendica. The votes show.
Thought police here we come…
whoever is still there deserves anything that happens.
Is this the start of the second Reddit exodus? Maybe the normies will finally start leaving in meaningful numbers.
When posting direct quotes from the Declaration of Independence is interpreted as a call to violence on an American platform, there is a problem. The founding fathers of our nation were not perfect but they understood humanity’s willingness to suffer oppressive rule and the necessity of fighting against it within our own borders.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
That got me banned from reddit.
I mean, I’m not shocked. I’m pretty sure they’re just plugging a bunch of hastily trained LLMs in as mods and admins at this point.
Holy shit, bro, wow. Just wow. That’s where we’re at.
It isn’t surprising though. The social class that billionaires and large corporation officers/shareholders represent have always sought a return to an unrestricted aristocracy.
the reddit ecosystem relies on engaged users to downvote bad content…
Sounds like the engaged users have decided what the good content is, but it doesn’t align with the opinions of the tech CEO whose dick is tickling the admins tonsils.
Keep going reddit. I’m sure one more form of censorship will make daddy musk love you again.
They rather reboot digg instead of joining us. I chuckled.
Mark my words: They will scream and stay there. Mods with balls already left that site long ago.
I went and left a bunch of comments telling people about Lemmy, so who knows. Maybe they get removed, maybe I actually get banned on reddit for this.
I saw a post on Reddit yesterday talking about Lenny after Reddit sent me the warning message and now I’m here, so thanks!
Welcome! Here are a few pointers for you
I’m really glad there is Lemmy as an alternative, despite lots of Redditors not believing it is one.
It’s great, and I have no idea what the website looks like. I use 3rd party apps on my phone exclusively. Something Reddit doesnt let me do.
Lots of Redditors also not believing the earth is not flat.
