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Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

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Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#61

Post by Talanes »

sebow wrote: post #29
pedro2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese? I'd say Russian.

I'm pretty sure a certain chinese company invested ~300M$ couple of years ago[0] if i recall correctly.However the platform became totally unusable and a sh*tfest way before that,think ~2014+, mainly because it was the turning point where no transparency was maintained or provided anymore, especially when it comes to moderation of users & their posts and management of subreddits.By early 2016 this was almost 'proved'…

>the 'official' north-korean (propaganda) subreddit,

I'd honestly always assumed /r/pyonyang was very clever anti-NK propaganda. The role it occupies as Reddit in-joke aligns with western agendas.

/r/nknews skews closer to actual North Korean propaganda, but I think (or maybe just hope) the general vibe there is the readership understands that ANYTHING you read online about North Korea is potentially propagandized in one way or the other.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#62

Post by namibj »

miyuru wrote: post #25
djwinter wrote: post #8

I suspect I was banned from Instagram in the same way. No explanation was given. I use ProtonVPN. It wasn't until Spotify stopped working sometime later (403 Forbidden for all HTTP requests) that I narrowed it down to using VPN. Seems to be a growing thing. Thankfully, Spotify didn't do anything to my account, and it continued to work from regular IPs.

At work we got a login attack via VPN IPs and we blocked VPNs from login in via AWS WAF and 2 days later a major user was complaining that he cant login. We had to remove the rule. (developers were working on captcha in the meantime) I also used a tunnel when Spotify was not available globally. It did not create any issues. Using a Public VPN is double edged sword. If you really need it its better to setup a wireguar…

The reason OP flipped between VPN exit locations in the first places has been because they wanted a VPN against the local ISP (public wifi, apparently) manipulating/sniffing traffic, without the latency penalty of going from France to the UK or vice-versa. That said, a vps in Amsterdam is quite practical from both locations, especially if mildly-congested wifi is already involved.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#63

Post by profmonocle »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #39

It's how the Reddit spam filter works. Once your account is flagged as spam by the system, it would be global shadowbanned automacially. At this stage, your account is essentially finished, it's basically impossible to talk to someone and get your account unblocked. Eventually the account would be deleted, all the post you've ever made would also be gone in the worst-case scenario, just like my previous account. My R…

> At this stage, your account is essentially finished, it's basically impossible to talk to someone and get your account unblocked.

Seems like they're following Google's strategy. Presumably, ad profit from each individual user is low enough that it's cheaper to accept false positives in their anti-abuse mechanism than it is to provide a functioning appeal process. Maybe if the user manages to go viral on Twitter or HN with their story they could get it reversed. Going viral with stories of false-positive bans is the primary way to restore a Google account, it probably works for Reddit too. Normal people have to suck eggs.

At least losing a Reddit account is less life-disrupting for most people than losing their Google account.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#65

Post by Mindwipe »

captainmuon wrote: post #4

Can you disclose which VPN you are using? I sometimes use ExpressVPN + a different browser to protect my identity, but it would be annoying if I lost my account. The charitable interpretation is that Reddit got a lot of abuse from individual IPs, the IP didn't seem to be shared to them, and they just blacklisted it. I assume they don't generally blacklist IPs from abusive users, since otherwise university campusses w…

> The charitable interpretation is that Reddit got a lot of abuse from individual IPs, the IP didn't seem to be shared to them, and they just blacklisted it.

They likely buy databases of IP addresses which have likelihood of fraud attached to them from third parties like Neustar or Geocomply or Digital Envoy.

Being a VPN address is a great way to get a giant red flag on those databases (correctly).

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#66

Post by zauguin »

ebbp wrote: post #13

I’d guess it’s not the usage of a VPN that has triggered this, but rather a new account immediately presenting multiple IP addresses. I’d guess that would trigger abuse flags at most places (especially from known VPN IP addresses which tend to have a lot of malicious activity originating from them). This isn’t to defend them - it seems very odd to immediately permanently suspend accounts like that!

> (especially from known VPN IP addresses which tend to have a lot of malicious activity originating from them).

While certainly true, in my experience unknown VPN IP addresses can be even more problematic since for them, even providers willing to support the interests of VPN users just see lot's of suspicious usage from you IP address without any real explanation.

> This isn’t to defend them - it seems very odd to immediately permanently suspend accounts like that!

Normally I would agree, but since the account is not only just a few days old but also didn't post or create comments, I think that immediately banning it makes sense.

For a new account which didn't create any content yet the user isn't loosing anything important if the account is deleted and since the user is unlikely to have any real attachment to the account yet, they are more likely to just create a new account than to deal with any warning/suspension/whatever procedures.

IMHO you shouldn't expect your account to stick around until you have at least some non trivial content in the account.

Of course the main account is a different story.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#67

Post by vero2 »

waffle_maniac wrote: post #64

Reddit bans users for complaining about mods. Deleting my accounts and not looking back. Twitter is more free and people are generally less offended by criticism.

This did happen to me once. I did once comment that code of one of mods was fact wrong (code snippet). The mod warned me about banning me from the sub. I just requested please see the code and you did type it incorrectly. Next day ban...

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#68

Post by profmonocle »

burntoutfire wrote: post #57
dzhiurgis wrote: post #45

People shit on facebook but honestly how reddit is still pushing that redesign is unfathomable.

The redesign has one major advantage from their point of view (which I suspect was the reason behind it in the first place) - the individual posts on main screen now take up much more screen space. This allows to seamlessly insert fairly large ads masquaraded as posts, which wasn't possible with the old design.

> the individual posts on main screen now take up much more screen space

It's insulting how deliberate this is. I just tried using the redesign for ~5 minutes to see if it was as bad as I remembered, and the amount of dead space on my screen is striking. I have a normal 16:9 monitor and roughly 2/3rds of the front page is just totally blank, meanwhile you have post titles taking up 3-4 lines of the tiny column they're forced into.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#69

Post by danuker »

waffle_maniac wrote: post #64

Reddit bans users for complaining about mods. Deleting my accounts and not looking back. Twitter is more free and people are generally less offended by criticism.

Twitter banned an ex-president. I don't think it's any more free. Use https://notabug.io/

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#70

Post by vero2 »

code_duck wrote: post #59

I periodically delete reddit accounts and start new ones, mainly to preserve anonymity and prevent harassment. 1 in 3 accounts I start are shadowbanned from the start for no apparent reason at all. I’ve never used a VPN. Same IPs and devices each time with no attempts at obfuscation or any activity that would reasonably seem suspicious.

I create one with suffix "_month", post one comment, and wait for it to languish for a few weeks before using it 'regularly'. Otherwise it gets shadow ban.
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