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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    7 hours 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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    2 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.

  • Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I upvoted a comment that was just a gif of Luigi Luigi (from Nintendo) smoking a cigarette.

    “Promoting/glorifying violence”

    Fuck Reddit. Fuck Spez. Fuck Elon.

  • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    First permaban was for asking: “Any updates on Mitch McConnell? I could use some good news.” Mod appeal denied

    Then on another account a year later (bc I got so many death threats from Nazis on Reddit), I forgot I had a ban on that sub and said, “We should spend money feeding our kids instead of spending it to blow up someone else’s kids.” And that was an IP ban.

    Crazy, I’ve seen literal Nazis on there not even get comments removed. We live in dark times.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      the first reason was ridiculous, jyust for asking that question? you know it turning right wing, when you cant even IMPLY things. i used accounts like you did, dint get ban that aggressively, maybe because i was also using multiple locations, confused reddit for a while.

  • ProfHillbilly@lemmy.world
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    5 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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      5 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

  • BluewaterRed@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    Holy crap that is EXACTLY what happened to me this week. I wasn’t top contributor or anything so grand but I got a 7 ban after criticizing imperialism which after making an appeal that was rejected. I literally did nothing afterwards but woke up to a perma ban that was issued several hours after with no indication of why.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      5 days ago

      it seems they are site-wide banning people after thier 1-week temp ban? i had one before they immediately banned all my other accounts, eventhough those havnt participated in those subs i got banned recently. they are also looking for any old accounts you may have banned from, so they are retroactively applying to all your accounts.

  • illegible@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 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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      5 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.

  • TheHalifaxJones@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I was on reddit since around 2010. Had probably 500k karma in total? I was around before the apps. Still in the air of early internet vibes. It was a great place to find your community and chat.

    I got my first ever temp ban a month ago for saying Luigi started a movement that our world needs. For billionaires need to be afraid of every day people.

    Got a ban on r/news. Then shortly after a full ban.

    I’ve been banned from plenty of right wing subs and it’s never been an issue. But one comment into their top corporate subreddit did it. So I left. Fuck em. There is no free speech there and to be honest. The quality of comments and community has dropped so heavily since 2016 that it doesn’t feel like a loss to me. Reddit community used to have standards and free speech for anyone. Now it’s no different from Facebook. Shitty joke comments on serious topics. Bots everywhere. It’s just a black hole now.

    • Cocopanda@futurology.today
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      7 days ago

      Couldn’t agree more with your assent. On one of my alts. I said we should collectively throw dog shit at Reddit HQ and they banned me. lol. It was a joke playing on the farmers that drive manure spreaders into the villages to fuck with council.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Reddit died the day they fired Victoria for… checks notes, doing her job effectively. That’s when I knew that reddit was fucking doomed. Everything since then has just been nails in the coffin.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      news is one of those subs to avoid, they ban very easily much like r/politics does. they misconstrued my statement on several occasion and banned it outright.

  • Ilixtze@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    I got banned about a year ago for… checks notes repeatedly calling a genocidal army “bastards” =,D

    Edit… ok maybe I called them sons of bitches and nazis.

  • Geetnerd@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Same, happened to me hours ago, with no message stating why, or no recourse.

    Elon whined to Spez to do something about Redditors being mean to him.

    I guess it worked. Fuck both of them.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I suggested that the most appropriate way to deal with Nazis moving into your neighborhood was the traditional Scandinavian practice of hús-brenna. Apparently the admins dislike effective solutions.

    It took me a few days to overwrite all of my comments from the prior 15 years or so, but I did it. Because fuck 'em, they don’t get to train their AI on my data.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      To be fair, what sounded like some northern European idea of just ignoring the person so much they have to leave did, on researching, lead to the Wikipedia article titled “Arson in Medieval Scandinavia” and was about burning people alive in their own homes.

      Reddit still sucks and all and I wouldn’t be at all sad if this happened to quite a few of these fuckwads but I mean c’mon they definitely weren’t mad at the effectiveness of the solution.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        They seemed to be upset that I was advocating for an effective and permanent solution. :)

        I regret nothing.

        • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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          6 days ago

          they will probably ban talks of inglorius bastard, or Xmen first class someday.

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        6 days ago

        they are mad, now that nazis is control of the government, a NAZI complained to reddit and told spez to increase his “moderation”.

        basically like a niche sub i was visiting where the youtube channel owners were asian and jokes about news, and when they turned magat-ty they couldnt take any criticism at all and even started to systematically attack the sub, trying to get it banned, they fled to FACEBOOK of course to orchestrate thier attack, they were concerned the sub was revealing too much about thier shitty behaviour it was driving down thier viewership, they attacked instead of addressing they were the sole cause of thier decline.

        the fact they are ASIAN/POC and literally sucking trump and musk off is some mental gymnastics, also contains hallmarks of conservatives, talks of pedophelia, cyrptoscams,etc.

        • Soup@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          Conservatives that aren’t rich, white, and straight surprise the hell out of me. Like, it was literally founded to push only that group and at the time even Irish people weren’t the right kind of white.

          • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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            5 days ago

            the mental gymnasitics from lgbtq+ is probablly even more shocking. your a gay porn stars and a trumper. im guessing because they believe they are white, they are exception to the rule. besides the one that was reported in media recently(trumps first term) other white ones were criticized, like how come you never slept with POC guys, and only white guys with big PPs in pornos. back when abercombrie stores were around the staff were all white, typical blond males, when any poc entered the store they gave a nasty stare.

            they believe if they are warmonger, evangelical enough it counts. i have a feel asians are probably on the lowest totem pole of a token, because they almost never are confrontational in public.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        5 days ago

        Possibly. They’re not supposed to by their own claims, but possibly. I suppose that if I lived in the EU, I could sue them over it.