this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2023
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I have been supporting Lemmy recently a lot and made posts about Lemmy that got big reach. Today, sadly the reddit account through which, I moderated a lot of subs and spent time on, comes to an end. The reason was because I spammed according to reddit, but the reality is that they have censored me because I was hurting Reddit.

Asking multiple third-party app devs consider Lemmy + Made the same post here as well

I never thought this would happen, not that I didn't completely expect it (but maybe not this soon and sudden), after all Reddit is known for censorship, and the fact that Reddit admins have absolute power over this website makes this believable. But part of me, misses that reddit account, it has been special to me, as I've spent countless of hours spending my personal time to moderate and improve communities that helped Reddit thrive. I moderated as many subs as over 25, many of them had atleast over 1k people, some as many as 200k if not more.

Before this happened, suspiciously, they banned r/LemmyMigration today early morning,

it remained banned for a few hours and returned back to normal (not weird at all). I thought that was a mistake, as the sub was back to normal unbanned, but it seems like the Reddit admins realized if they banned my sub, that would prove how they censor it, it can work against them. Now, it seems like they have realized that bringing my account down would be more effective, and stop me from possibly sharing how they censored my sub on other subs for example.

It's a shame, and part of me is sad, everything I worked hard for was taken away by them all of a sudden. I wanted to bring some of my communities here, now everything is gone, and it feels more like starting from scratch (Or discuss with mods I am still in contact with, and get help to bring communities I was planning on bring here, but it certainly makes things harder, not giving up anyways, especially not after this).

BTW I have filled an appeal, but I don't expect this to be reversed, this was planned by the Reddit admins and all they have to do is ignore my appeal, there is nothing more I can do to get my account back, and they just got rid of someone who was pinpointing some of their biggest flaws and potentially dangering their platform's dominance in the "aggregation and discussion platforms" market.

A note to all refugees and ex-redditors here, or those who are planning to join Lemmy - See the power a centralized corporation like Reddit holds. With a decentralized alternative like Lemmy, you can host your own instance or join another one if you get censored, with lemmy, we can put more power back in the hands of the people.

I don't have much else to say, moving on I will have to work with mods left that I do know through external platforms like Discord and try to bring some communities here. I hope this does not happen to any other moderator who have spend countless of hours helping Reddit in-directly like I did, somehow escaping such a suspension.

EDIT: There is some controversy in the comments if I actually spammed, I don't think I spammed at all, I only made a post on r/ApolloApp, it became a hit so I cross-posted it to other third-party app subs, just so that it can hopefully reach out to the respective developers for them to possibly consider Lemmy in the wake of new reddit API changes.

I was also certainly not the only one mentioning alternatives like Lemmy on the r/Apolloapp or any other third-party app sub, in-fact many people were mentioning alternatives, though I was banned, also my community r/LemmyMigration as mentioned above was called spam (and was temporarily banned, but was weirdly brought back up just to put my account down later today afternoon) when it only had 2 posts today morning. To me, "spam" seems like it is only used as a cover up by Reddit, the real reason is that my posts, just like r/LemmyMigration, was about Lemmy, a competition to Reddit.

Also if it was really spam, as soon as I cross-posted my post from r/apolloapp to the other subs, the mods would have removed it well before they got a lot of attention, why didn't they?

EDIT 2: A user called @danke has been spreading misinformation about me in the comments:

Just as you did on your newly created reddit alt, you’re painting this lie that you were banned for your tiny no-name subreddit and not for spamming this garbage on 11 different mobile app subreddits in quick succession. It’s truly like clockwork for sitebanned users to lie and omit these massive details.

This is a blatant lie, I mentioned about the cross-posts right IN THIS post: "Asking multiple third-party app devs consider Lemmy + Made the same post here as well"

As you can see, I made the post right here and on reddit, i never missed any details.

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[–] neytjs@lemmy.ml 54 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is another good reason to stop using reddit. The internet used to have millions of active message boards for discussion of numerous topics. Reddit has essentially become one giant message board to rule them all. The world does not need this. Best to help decentralize the internet by promoting alternatives.

[–] Lowey@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

One of the reason reddit rose from these boards was persistence, boards were all over the place and no sureness if they will stay tomorrow. It seems reddit posts now have the same fate.

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[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Just got banned from a meme sub for making a meme about moving to Lemmy... Even tho the sub is participating in the blackout. Go figure.

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[–] redditrefugee@lemmy.one 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Reddit permanently suspended all of my accounts because I said Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a cunt for not retiring when she had the chance. R/politics banned that account, and then a few weeks later I'd forgotten about that incident and commented in another post from a different account. That's when reddit permabanned all of my accounts.

I've been on reddit since August 2008 when Randal Monroe published this xkcd about it: https://xkcd.com/477/

Bonus link: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/71v7z/typewriter_xkcd/

15 fucking years on that site and they ban all my accounts and devices, then third party apps, porn, and who knows what else. Good riddance.

[–] circuitsunfish@plesiosaur.net 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

@redditrefugee @Archit bit of a rude word to call her, especially in the US if you're not from here and your culture is a lot more relaxed on that word. So while it's gross that they've banned you I'm kind of not surprised that kind of language would attract that kind of attention.

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[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

If this is true, this is probably an anti competitive practice and you can report it to regulation authorities in the US and EU, you might want to consult some non profit that deals with open source and free software for legal advice.

[–] JshKlsn@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

you can report it to regulation authorities in the US

Funny you think the US cares.

[–] Jumuta@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Louis Rossmann's lobbying videos have made me lose all of my trust in the integrity of the US government tbh

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[–] semperpeppe@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 years ago

We can try to send an email to FSFE and though them we may be able to reach some more visibility. Also, there is a large list of journalists that already use and support the Fediverse, some of them write for big newspapers. Another thing could be directly contacting your MPs, but the communication in that case is different I guess

[–] nhgeek@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 years ago

All hail Lemmy. I really hope it gets the critical mass it needs after these shenanigans.

[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

"Spam" reeks of weak horseshit justification for reddit's actions here. Lots of people x-post all sorts of things all the time. They were itching for a legitimate-sounding reason to ban you and they just reached for the first thing they could find using the loosest possible definition.

[–] JshKlsn@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It is. Have you seen any of those onlyfans girls Reddit accounts? They post the same photo over 100x per day to all different subs. If you scroll down their profile, you can scroll for a good solid 5 minutes before you reach 7 days ago.

This isn't about spam. Spam gets caught in filters. Spammers get shadow banned.

[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

That explicitly violates the spamming and self promotion rules.

Meanwhile, reddit admins:

image___

[–] crankylinuxuser@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

In reality, its whatever causes Reddit to look worse for their upcoming IPO.

And the real issue here is that this lying and deception is at the root of Reddit's core values.

https://venturebeat.com/social/reddit-fake-users/

" (Cofounder) Huffman said one other strategy proved crucial to Reddit’s early success, which most people are unaware of: The team submitted a ridiculous amount of content under fake user accounts to give the appearance of popularity. Yes, you read that right. Reddit — a site that values a fair and open democratic process to determine worthy content and police itself — sleeps soundly on a bed of lies. "

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[–] Boobajoob@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago

That sucks dude. Fuck Reddit

[–] WD40@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago

This is unsurprising, sadly. Reddit’s moderation is a joke, and they’re very well known for putting down oppositional posts and users. With the impending public offering this is only going to get worse.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is showing that they know about Lemmy, which to a huge corporation like that is huge. It means they're starting to take it seriously.

Good. Let them sweat.

Sorry you had your account taken away because of it. I'll use my throwaways now to evangelize it.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They absolutely know about us, probably from a long time ago, but especially in this past week, with lemmy getting posted everywhere.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

They've done an amazing job at burning their community. They think 3rd party apps are only used by super nerds (or at least many of the people I've talked to do), but I think they forgot who provides most of the content.

Well, bots now, but good content usually came from the super nerds

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Sometimes I do get a bit doomerist about it. If reddit is to be believed, they claim something like < 20% of people use old.reddit, or mobile apps. That seems incredibly low to me, but I must admit most of the people who I encounter IRL that use reddit don't know about old reddit, RES, or other apps.

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[–] Andreas@feddit.dk 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I have a feeling that if you really crunch Reddit's numbers, the content that provides the most engagement and revenue is NSFW content. Reddit is one of the only large social media websites that allows NSFW and the subreddit system makes it much easier to categorize and find content than Twitter, so there are a massive number of invisible users who do not use the site for anything except NSFW, which is also why it's specifically targeted in the new API policy. Long-term, technically knowledgeable users who produce high-quality content are not nearly as financially exploitable as the mass of users who use Reddit as a NSFW directory and who have no alternative to migrate to.

Plus, the majority of active Reddit users are non-technical "normies" who joined Reddit after hearing about it from trends like the GameStop stock. Those users use the official app and have no idea what an API is, so they don't care and will continue to use Reddit.

[–] CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

Reddit is so damn hypocritical here. They are successful because Digg buried itself doing shit like this. They literally got success as a result of another company doing the speedrun-your-platform-into-oblivion playbook that they are now following themselves. Look in a mirror, idiots, you've become exactly that which was the downfall of your competition some 13 years ago.

[–] Krause@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Cracking down on people advertising it is a sign of weakness, they're afraid and need to limit people spreading the word. Hopefully the coordinated moderation strike that a lot of subs are doing makes a dent on their user base, I hope people really move to federated alternatives this time instead of staying on the hostile platform/just crossposting like it happened with the Twitter/Mastodon thing.

[–] const_void@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Reddit is trash. Reddit admins are trash.

[–] bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

i got banned from my fav game's sub (gta online) for saying fuck islam cus many casino features are unavailable for me, even the -free- daily casino wheel spin... their reasoning was "racism". im an arab...

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[–] Lowey@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

So, this might or might not provoke the Streisand effect? At either case it's important to post links to your alternative accounts on different platforms on your bio and put it in archive.org + archive.today for ban reasons. Anyone on any platform can get banned, it's important to have a plan for that. Hope you can recover at least partial/full of what was banned.

[–] EgyptUrnash@pawb.social 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

hahaha holy shit

I wonder if "cross-posting about /r/LemmyMigration to a bunch of other subs" triggered an automatic spam filter in a way that a bunch of different people saying "hey have you heard about Lemmy" does not. There's a certain level of slack I'm willing to cut for people trying to moderate something as huge as Reddit or Twitter or whatever; it's what happens in the next few days that's really going to be worth reacting to.

Good luck with the appeal. <3

[–] Archit@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, my appeal has been nothing but ignored, as if it never existed, not even a single reply from them backing their decision.

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[–] Vaggumon@midwest.social 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'll be delting my 8 year old Reddit Account at the end of the month. I'm moving to Lemmy as my new Reddit.

[–] tallwookie@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

same - but I deleted my 15 yr old account today along with a few others I havent used in years.

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[–] smartwater0897@lemmy.one 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Why would you work for free to help reddit, when you know what they are? Is it because you still have hope the site will go back to how it was when you started?

[–] Archit@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I stopped when I realized and started supporting FOSS projects like Lemmy, in-fact that's why I posted about Lemmy, and in-turn got banned for mentioning reddit's competitor, and most probably making reddit admins feel in-secure.

I kind of gave away everything I did at Reddit for Lemmy, and somehow it was something I was expecting might happen, I was willing to take the risk anyways, this proves the disadvantages of relying on a platform like Reddit.

[–] this@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

I just ran powerdelete suit on my reddit accounts and replaced all of my posts/comments with ones urging users to join lemmy. I was going to wait until July 1rst but if reddit is going to get that serious, then so am I. I am OUT!

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[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

I'm advertising Lemmy on every popular post on my 11 year old account.. I'm already through the painful part of the breakup, and have moved on to better things. Go ahead and ban me Reddit

[–] admin@lemmyrs.org 5 points 2 years ago

I believe I got shadow-banned as well for trying to promote the instance I host, oh well 🤷

[–] AnEilifintChorcra@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Pretty sure Reddit can't ban people for promoting/linking to competitors sites as there is EU regulations in place to prevent this.

This issue was raised when Twitter tried to stop people from linking to their Mastodon accounts. Twitter put the policy in place and then quietly removed it soon after.

If you really believe that you were banned for promoting Lemmy then you should mention this in your appeal but as others have mentioned it seems like the issue was spam.

And sure maybe they were waiting for any reason they could get to ban you because you were promoting Lemmy and they got you on spam, always gotta read the contract/TOS to make sure the other party doesn't get you on a technicality

[–] Tretiak@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

If you really believe that you were banned for promoting Lemmy then you should mention this in your appeal but as others have mentioned it seems like the issue was spam.

And that's precisely why the issue is going to be 'spam', even when it isn't. Because if you can't get away with stating the real reason the ban went into effect, you're going to do it under the auspice of something that has a degree of plausible deniability. I'm far less willing to give Reddit the charitable benefit of the doubt on this, seeing the shear amount of ridiculous bans that have been given out to people. But who knows, it's entirely possible it could've been spam.

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