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.

  • Gowron_Howard@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    I was permanently banned for “inciting violence” by saying how great it would be if a meteor crashed down on Mike Johnson. A meteor….

  • vvilld@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    I got banned for calling a guy a “fascist sanewasher” and refusing to post an apology when a mod messaged me to tell me to apologize.

  • ProfHillbilly@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Yeah I got banned for 7 days then used my alt account and got hit with a perma ban. I got banned last summer and have not really regretted it. I was part of the Digg migration so I had been there a long time. I was pissed at first then I realized it really means nothing in the end.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      i came from Y’A answers and various forums, never knew digg existed. it seems alternate account seems to recieve a heavier ban than the main one, and its risky to have an extra account. when one of my main accts were temp ban in oct '23 for criticizing israel, i switched to a backup older account thinking it would be safer with an old account, i managed the whole year(although i think get many warnings an 1 sub ban) only til feb i recieve the full arsenal of bans

  • illegible@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 days ago

    It’s funny how we used to have this trope of the mighty censorship bureau that has to rubberstamp everything (like they do for movies) but the reality is that the sycophants will trip over themselves to censor their neighbors in order to please those above. In Reddits case you have subreddit mods banning and censoring to please the reddit mods, who are trying to please reddit management, who are trying to please people like Musk, who are trying to please Trump. Trump doesn’t have to say anything, those low level Mods are doing all the censoring for him pro bono.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      mainly musk was complaining, and he was getting people banned. everytime the gop or musk complained the reddit initiate one of thier famous purges. now they are including vague responses in a ban message so it reduces thier liability, and gives them plausable excuses to ban people.

  • Fair Fairy@thelemmy.club
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    5 days ago

    I get banned from reddit all the time for saying things against Israel.

    Just clear browser cache and poweroff your cable modem for 15 min, should get ya new IP.
    Don’t use reddit mobile app, app will track unique device identifier and new account will still be banned.

    Firefox+ ublock on desktop and mobile is your friend.

    source: reddit permabanned many times

  • Glaedr304@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    My leaving was originally from the api cost changes, I had payed for a 3rd party reader years ago and all of a sudden my lifetime of no ads was gone and I had to pay. This change was admittedly after reddit decided to follow twitters api cost changes. I am supprised at how close Elon and spez seem to be, given that I don’t know of any photos of the two of them, they they probably only know each other as CEO’s.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      they are in cahoots with each other, since spez have openly love how elon “moderates” twitter, make sense why it resembls it now.

  • Surp@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I cant even tell you what I got banned for because they banned me without saying why. I dont even know the last thing I was talking about was finding anime in the style of berserk.

    • ghen@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      They probably banned you for something that happened at least 24 hours before the ban hit because they’re just slow. My account was banned a week after I had replied to a racist troll trying to figure out if they were being racist so that I could ban them on my subreddit, and my comment was flagged as racist. I had already banned the user and hidden the thread, but that wasn’t good enough for Reddit and I needed to go.

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        6 days ago

        thats interesting, another method i hear dis they are linking accounts in a sub, strangers together in a group and just wait til oneof them gets banned, then the whole group that got flagged also is banned. i think its thier filters assuming they all are botting, because they are posting similar comments.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I got permabanned for criticizing Israel. The final comment that got me permabanned was literally ‘No, just the problems they deserve blame for’ to a zionist who accused all Lebanese of blaming all their problems on Israel.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      those ego stroking subs are prone to that. i got temp ban from technology for “reporting posts” too.

  • utopiah@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I haven’t nor plan to… but it’s also worst and worst content and behavior so yesterday I request my data take-out.

    I’m not sure if I’ll just stay logged-out (like right now) or plainly delete my account but either I’m preparing a way out.