Sorry for the rant, I don’t know if it belongs here, I’m new. But I am just super disappointed and want to maybe help people in the future experiencing something similar so we can cope together.
So, a few days ago, one of my random alt accounts on Reddit gets sitewide banned for harassment because I called someone dumb in the comments (literally no more than that) as a joke on a shitpost a few years ago. I laugh the random account ban off and delete the account and return to my normal Redditing.
Now, I’ve been a daily commenter and poster on Reddit for several years at this point. You could call it addiction. But I also use it for updates and questions at my local university, so it’s also made its way into my personal life, too.
So, after the ban, I figured I was fine and I could continue to use one of my many other accounts. I was wrong.
Nope. A few hours later, ALL of my accounts over the last decade or so get permanently banned for ban evasion. I did not know Reddit bans were global like that. So, obviously I try to appeal the bullshit original ban, but I DELETED the account so I couldn’t.
I try to appeal on the alts, but I get the same generic “your request has been denied” message. Over and over again across all of them, same message.
So, I figure that they banned me for having my other accounts on the same device. Really shitty all my accounts were gone but I was reluctantly fine to start over by removing them all and deleting the app.
Those accounts got banned too.
Okay, looks like it’s by IP and device. Cool. I’ll… use the browser version on Brave and use a VPN when I want to post on Reddit. Super inconvenient but I’ll do what I have to do.
All accounts created or largely used on a VPN get shadow banned and appeals are ignored.
Okay, VPNs don’t work. I’ll delete all my account info on all my devices, reset my router to change my IP, use a new device, and not sign into any accounts other than Reddit and that should be good!
It works for a few hours. Perfectly fine. But, as I scroll more and more, I start to see communities that I recognize from my old accounts. No big deal, they probably recommend those communities to a lot of new users.
But, as I scrolled more and more, even smaller communities showed up that I used. Smaller, smaller, and even smaller, until eventually these were subs under 5k members even though I didn’t interact with he vast majority. They caught me, again, on a brand new device with a different IP.
Well fuck. Reddit is going to be the biggest inconvenience ever to use again. But I had one last trick up my sleeve.
A special VPN that uses the network of its users to reroute internet so websites are extremely unlikely to ban each individual server. A fucking virtual linux machine. Brave browser with the most secure settings.
It went well for longer this time, a few days, but the same Orwellian shit happened. More and more tiny subs until I saw ones with mere single digit upvotes on all the posts on subs with just a few thousand members. And then, just a day or two after my account creation, boom. Permanent ban there, too.
There is literally nothing you can do to get back on Reddit if you’re banned and want to use it in even a slightly normal way. I have submitted an appeal on the reddithelp form, but this is also extremely unlikely to be accepted even though the ban was bullshit; they haven’t responded yet. I don’t think I can ever use Reddit again because their system uses the most advanced AI to detect evaders I have ever seen. They’re definitely spending tens of millions monthly on computer costs and research SOLELY to catch evaders and it fucking works.
So, I guess I’m a Lemming from now on. Super upset, Lemmy doesn’t have subs for my favourite games and even the more popular games are super inactive. But, there is nothing I can do. Sorry for the rant but I know I started reading ban posts like these for hours when I first got banned, so I hope I can help people in the future realize they’re completely done for unless their appeal gets accepted.
TL;DR: Even with a completely unrelated device, IP, and a virtual machine, Reddit’s AI will detect what types of posts you like until they are slightly confident it’s you. Then, permanent ban. You cannot avoid this. I’m super bummed out.
Edit: For peoples who have had site-wide bans doomscrolling about it in the future like I was, I’m not saying evading a ban is impossible. If you really want to get back on don’t give up hope, I’m just saying it’s going to be very difficult. But definitely consider contributing to the awesome Lemmy community. I know it’s missing a lot, but it does help scratch the itch. I recommend the Blorp app as it’s the most similar to Reddit’s UI.
Blorp dev here. Welcome to Lemmy! Let me know if there is anything I can do to improve your experience. PieFed is also worth checking out. You’ll see all the same content as Lemmy, and PieFed has post flairs. Blorp lets you login to PieFed and Lemmy at the same time.
Thanks for making Blorp, it’s my favourite Lemmy app I’ve tried! And the lack of post flairs is something I’ve noticed, so I might try PieFed out.
If you want feedback on some more (very minor) things I would love to be fixed, here’s a list of things I’ve noticed:
I posted on the Blorp community yesterday about wanting a “read all” button for notifications (mostly because this post got a lot) so that would be really nice.
Other than that, it’s mostly just tiny things. Apparently Lemmy has a backend way to see user karma, so maybe seeing that would be nice to add as an option?
Maybe a button to copy and paste a post’s body text on mobile like on Reddit, or even a “save image/video” button? This is really minor.
And maybe an easier way to see the upvote/downvote ratio? (like 87% upvoted as an example)
Maybe this isn’t possible for some reason, but would a way to create a community inside of Blorp be possible? I don’t know if Lemmy works like that.
Thanks again for making this app, especially the fact that it’s on iOS. I hope it’s not too much of a time/financial burden because it’s great.
(All of this is from iOS by the way)
I got perma-banned years ago for simply saying “fingers crossed” on a post about Trump getting COVID.
I created a new account and have been on that since. Even posing in the sub that triggered the ban.
Weird. Seems someone is taking a personal vendetta out on you.
I’ve had a very similar experience to OP in the last few months, it’s actually what originally lead me to discovering the fediverse in the first place. They have automated detection that will ban you within seconds of making a post. I appealed because I had no idea my alt account had even been banned from the subreddit I was posting on in the first place.
It’s unreal. Rather than giving you a warning when trying to make a post they just automatically ban you and will auto-reject any appeals you make.
This is more of a recent thing.
Since the API changes, everyone’s been pretty much forced to use their first-party app, so they can collect even more data on you. But, even without it, they still collect a comically huge amount of data like how long you hover on a post or how fast you type on your keyboard.
That combined with the seemingly sudden leap in AI within the last 3-4 years has allowed them to employ AI specifically trained to detect evaders.
If you want to keep using Reddit, be careful, because second chances are very hard now!
Reddit banned my indie game studio account because my coworker logged in on the same computer I was using to comment on our latest trailer.
They said I was switching accounts to boost my post. Then banned my company account, and all the accounts for all my employees.
The more you look into Reddits community rules, the more generic they become so they can make up any excuse to ban you.
There’s a currency subreddit that also banned an alt I created years ago for me saying the word “crypto” despite that not at all being listed in their rules. I asked a mod why, and his response was that it was considered “vulgar” language.
So yeah. Reddit will just ban you for any reason, even if you are an active community member or contributer. The site will be unusable in 5 years as the CEO will have IPOd it for max profit and left by then.
I think it’s useful in conversations like these to distinguish between bans made by Reddit admins, and bans in individual subreddits due to the actions of moderators (even if sometimes, poweruser mods will sometimes mass ban across all subreddits they are a mod for — this is still distinct from the admin bans).
I find the ban of your indie game studio account to be the thing that annoys me most in your post — that ban is bullshit, and such indiscriminate application of policy that it ends up undermining the stated goal of such moderation policies.
Whilst the bans from individual communities do also annoy me, that feels like a less useful thing to get annoyed at — for as long as there have been people, there will have been people who, upon gaining a modicum of power, abuse it in trivial, ego-serving ways. I think this human propensity is especially apparent on the internet. It sucks, but I also think that the most productive thing to do is to acknowledge the tendency and try to think of ways that we can make communities more resilient to the abusive actions of individuals.
The moderator/admin distinction is one such way, and this is especially apparent on federated social media like Lemmy. Whilst heavy handed admin level moderation is probably fine for smaller instances (such as if someone spins up a server for their friend group), it isn’t really viable when things get larger. The best approach seems to be for admins to have an extremely light hand in the day-to-day running of things, rather like a King in a constitutional monarchy.
This inevitably means that sometimes, communities can experience a toxic shift in the culture of the space through the petty actions of moderators, but in theory, people have the power to create a new community, whether on the same instance or otherwise. In practice, this doesn’t necessarily happen, because inertia is powerful (plus even when there is the need for a mass migration, such as if the original community is literally no longer available, not everyone ends up switching over to the new space). Power tripping moderators make online spaces worse, and it’s not viable to expect admins to regularly step in — if we want the admins to be able to act as a safety net for severe problems (such as the moderator team violating the policies of the instance), then it’s useful to preserve the separation between admin and moderator.
One of the reasons I like Lemmy is that it makes me think about problems like this, because the problem of “some mods are power tripping bastards — what should we do about that?” isn’t going away any time soon.
Theyre issuing site wide bans solely at subreddit mod’s discretion.
I commented on a post by u/babylonianweeb (the mod who’s taken over r/anime titties) he was posting as a regular user, without mod flair, and said something to the effect of ‘spain should just nuke israel’ (over a development in the Gaza flotilla saga) I commented that was a bad idea, and not likely, as spain does not have nukes.
I got a notice saying I had a temp sitewide ban. A couple hours later, this was upgraded to a permanent one for ‘promoting violence.’
Are you using new reddit or old reddit? I have never gotten hit with alt detection on old reddit.
Isn’t that just different front-end? I kinda doubt the detection system itself is different
even the more popular games are super inactive.
Due to the lower userbase, activity happens in more generic communities.
There’s
Then genre communities
It’s obviously not as busy as Reddit, but it’s still a busy enough place.
!newcomers@piefed.zip if you have questions
Reddit died for me on the day that they banned me within minutes for saying I should be allowed to punch Nazis, you know in an Indiana Jones kind of way. Or a Captain America way if you prefer. I’m pretty sure the thread had something to do with Captain America so it was relevant
You did the right thing
I wouldn’t even bother, I used the site for 15 years mostly just answering software and tech questions and talking about music gear and they banned me in seconds for one anti trump comment earlier this year. It’s fucked. Now I wish I would have stopped using it when they allowed The_Donald subreddit to fester on their site.
This shit is super dystopian.
The data also exists in Lemmy to auto IP ban and also attach your IP and MAC to a cookie.
Same as reddit.
One day, someone will make a community here that is moderated like that.
And thankfully none of us will have to use that bullshit community.
Lol,
Lmao
These practices were implemented on reddit to make moderation easier and to remove accountability.
It will be willingly introduced and implemented by the mods of the larger communities for the same reasons.
Mods here already use automod to ban people with no appeal process.
While I don’t like the cookie tracking, device linking, or fingerprinting, that is only a fraction as dystopian as the behavioural tracking like I mentioned.
Start your own instances for those that dont exist, we will grow slowly !
Frankly, I don’t understand why people keep insisting on using that cancer site. The Reddit many of us knew and once loved is gone. It is now just another right wing propaganda machine. Sad, but that’s the way it is.
It’s one of the only places to talk about some topics
There’s nothing mexican other than government propaganda and users who think they know better than someone who actually lives here… I still visit reddit for those reasons.
People don’t join Reddit to partake in things politically. The real attraction is how numerous that there are of communities anyone can join, that covers just about nearly anything anyone has ever thought of. It’s almost endless. There’s a community for someone out there and there’s interaction in them.
The problem was when people got fucking politics into their god damn heads way too damn much that they practically ruined everything for everyone everywhere. And I find it ironic that you call it a right wing propaganda machine when the last time I was there, there were volumes of these right-wingers complaining up and down how Reddit was left-wing.
But that’s just an example too of how damn contagious all of these fucking politics has gotten everything.
there were volumes of these right-wingers complaining up and down how Reddit was left-wing.
Yeah and that’s ironic because they literally call for violence against minorities and they’re still there but if you call a right winger an asshole you get permabanned. Reddit is a right wing cesspool, at least to the extent that its owners can make it one.
You can blame it on Spez and who he has allowed to be in charge of moderating the subreddits that control wherever this shit-flinging fest is happening at.
Depends wildly on the subreddit. I’m unaware of Spez personally getting involved in appointing and removing moderators for political reasons. I suspect the user above is referring to site admin policies rather than subreddits.
I thought that’s what I just did.
Of course. Of course. Right wingers screeching about everything being left wing totally means that’s the case, amirite?
Reddit doesn’t want you. They want bots – lots of bots – and bland people who will absorb what the bots tell them. Reddit thinks it will make money that way. Maybe they’re right, who knows? All I know is they don’t want us there.
The Reddit of old is long gone. The Mods on most subs are petulant cellar-dwellers. Censorship is off the charts. No thanks.
Be the change that you want to see on Lemmy. Make or participate in a community if you want it here.
True. And we need to stop bullshit like this.
Imagine if in the future, a company like Tencent managed to buy all the big social medias, or even if all the big social medias teamed up to ban stuff that goes against an agenda.
The future equivalents (or maybe the same as the ones we have now) of Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Discord, Youtube, Google, etc. could share their moderation tactics and ban anyone that speaks badly about whatever agenda they have.
Then, the Orwellian tech giants could use lightweight AI to detect evasion like I experienced on Reddit. No matter what, where, or how, they would ALWAYS be able to link a user to a banned user within hours or days no matter how little IP or fingerprint similarities they were JUST BY USAGE PATTERNS.
This is fucking creepy and insane. The future we are heading towards does not look bright when it comes to surveillance.
Although I’m reluctant to use Lemmy because of its tiny (but not nonexistent) size, I do think I will create some small communities similar to the ones on Reddit that I miss even if I’m the only one there.
Personally I’ve moved on from Reddit communities to Discord server communities.
Discord is following the same paths as reddit and can easily do the same to you
I’d love to see a good enough alternate that I could convince my normie friends to use. I’m sick of moving every time its profitable to shit up a chat platform.
Discord is, but there’s no capable developed Discord alternative. The Lemmy/Piefed/Mbin-verse is well developed.
Haven’t gotten sidewide permabanned so we’ll see. Maybe one day, we’ll revert back to good old fashion forums or internet relay chat or even newsgroups. The technophiles atleast, the masses probably will be still in their bubble of social media.
That’s why we’re building the fediverse right now. The enthusiasts have already evolved. No regression necessary.
Well I’m also here 😀
You are going about it the wrong way. The ban evasion is not as sophisticated as you make it out to be. Put a VPN or mobile data and create an account with a normal email. Use a normal web browser like firefox. Thats all. Ive been banned like 60+ times. Once you make the account dont comment for a few days and ease into it.
Using tor, vpns, etc makes you stick out. Commenting a ton and being super active makes you stick out. They aren’t detecting that it was YOU they banned they are just banning you because you are acting suspicious and botlike.
So do you literally just wait a few days and rejoin some of your favourite smaller subs after a few days no matter how small they are and still remain undetected?
Are you ever connecting to your old IP again after making the account on data or are you being super careful about it?
Also, if the bans aren’t for evasion, how are you coming back after 60 fucking times lol?!
After a month I’ll stop being careful and use my home IP
Because after I got banned for something so minor I was pissed at reddit and kept I being rude to comments and posts that were shit.
You know how you see the same reddit opinion over and over and over even though its completely incorrect. Or see posts that are so obviously false or rule breaking. I’d just be rude as fuck in my reply tone, not breaking any rules but still would draw bans.
The ones I hated the most were am I the asshole posts where they clearly weren’t. Like “am I the asshole for being abused by my parents”. Same with firecape posters in the old school runescape subreddit.
So you use the same devices as before just like firefox with cleared cookies? How long do your accs last?
Also sorry for bombarding you with questions it’s just I rlly doubt wanna lose the ability to post on some of these subs lol
I dont clear cookies but i run unlock. Accounts last a long time. Ive had one for a while because i spent my time on Lemmy these days. I dont comment on reddit much anymore. Just use it to view. Check your DMS you can habe the account.
reddit detects vpn too easily.
If the VPN has a ton of bad traffic coming from it then you’ll get banned. Any free VPN will 100% get you cooked. But i can create an account on the paid proton VPN servers with no issues.
They banned my alts for just lurking. I never commented a thing. All i ever did was upvote and bookmark on VPN and use the account to access other sites. Such bs
