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.

  • barneypiccolo@lemm.eeEnglish
    18·
    2 days ago

    I had a 12 year account, with over 900K karma. I was permabanned in Fenruary for repeating a comment I’d made nunerous times before the Inauguration without a word.

    I came to Lemmy, and found lots of other 10+ year accounts that were banned as well. It seems February was a bloodbath, as they ejected lots of veteran accounts. We’ll probably never know how many, but probably in the thousands. We were the people that built Reddit over the last decade, with high volumes of posts, and they never had reasons to ban us. Then suddenly, in February, ALL of us became such egregious violators that we all had to be permabanned?

    Whatever, Reddit was becoming increasingly frustrating. Every post was filled with puns, bots, Russian Propaganda Farmers, conservative trolls, and other such nonsense. Without all the active veteran posters, it’s only gotten far worse.

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      17 hours ago

      i had a 11year account that started on pokemon console, and i dint even know it was banned til i was sent an email, then i recieved 5+emails, turns out that one temp ban in feb12-13 triggered like 5 accounts to be sitewide banned instantly, i then fled to another forum(not lemmy) and they reported the same 5-10+years accts isntantly banned. although the forum is geared towards evading for income. then we also found out they were planning to sell REDDIT which make sense, since you need to sanatize the site and also not get on trumps and musk crosshair, they are definitely preparing for reddit to become X/facebook hybrid.

      even new users are getting canned too, shadowban for no reason? also using vpn or a cheap proxy is also enough for a ban.,

      feb-march was a big massacre, specifically march started the whole anti-luigi bannings.