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

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141–150 of 254 posts

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

#142
post #73

Both Reddit's admins and their future-employee mods are completely out of control, in a way that makes Facebook's intentional topic manipulation seem tame by comparison. These people go out of their way to ban people for no reason -- constantly, every single day -- in a way that can only be described as intentionally abusive. They appear to get some kind of sadistic pleasure in reading ban appeals and denying them, k…

I'm utterly amazed at how ban-wild some communities can be. I occasionally see stories of people being banned from communities they've never posted to (reading/lurking only) simply because they also subscribe to another community that is "opposite" of the first. Take /r/novavax_vaccine_talk for example. There was recently a member [1] there who was banned from /r/coronavirus simply for being a member. These people ar…

>There was recently a member there who was banned from ... simply for being a member

this is false. you can't tell if another user is subscribed to another subreddit.

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the strategy of all the major social players. Several months ago I followed a new cardistry (look it up) personality on Instagram. I scrolled through and "liked" one or two dozen of their performance clips, out of the hundreds that they've posted. My Instagram account was blocked, for "manipulation" or some verbiage like that. Basically, the algorithm thought that I was a bot hired to inflate that person's numbe…

Delete your email address from your profile. That got my ten year account banned.

Sounds like something someone who's going to sell their account would do.

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

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm utterly amazed at how ban-wild some communities can be. I occasionally see stories of people being banned from communities they've never posted to (reading/lurking only) simply because they also subscribe to another community that is "opposite" of the first. Take /r/novavax_vaccine_talk for example. There was recently a member [1] there who was banned from /r/coronavirus simply for being a member. These people ar…

>There was recently a member there who was banned from ... simply for being a member this is false. you can't tell if another user is subscribed to another subreddit.

They probably commented in the other sub

I’ve seen multiple subreddits that block people who were active in a specific other subreddit

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

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm utterly amazed at how ban-wild some communities can be. I occasionally see stories of people being banned from communities they've never posted to (reading/lurking only) simply because they also subscribe to another community that is "opposite" of the first. Take /r/novavax_vaccine_talk for example. There was recently a member [1] there who was banned from /r/coronavirus simply for being a member. These people ar…

I got banned from countless subreddits becuase I dared arguing with covide deniers on r/NoNewNormal. I didn't even agree with them and was always critical but that apperently doesn't matter

I got banned from around 15 popular subreddits (which I didn't read or participate anyway) for posting a comment in r/conspiracy which wasn't even related to the vax. There are thousands of cases like yours and mine and worst of all: it was fully automated. You literally posted anything into certain subreddits and you get autobanned in communities that aren't even related by any metric.

I didn't bother appealing since I don't care about those but it felt really dumb and perhaps a clear sign of Reddit's end times.

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

#146
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using Reddit since the beginning, and I still use and like it, but your ban for saying “using php is stupid” comment resonates. One of my biggest Reddit pet peeves is downvoting or punitive mod action in response to subjective opinions. It’s not a new problem, and it’s one that can happen in any forum with downvoting, but it drives me nuts. The downvote is not a disagree button!

The downvote button is Reddit's second biggest problem. It was meant to signal that a piece of content was either off-topic or broke a rule, as a way to alleviate the pressure of moderation. That's a fine theory, but it's simply not possible in an anonymous and unaccountable environment. It increases the trolling and makes it easy for bad actors to both control competitor content and promote their own.

Slashdot's mod points award system had pretty good noise rejection, but it too eventually succumbed to the dumbening.

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

#147
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. FWIW I had that happen to me a year or two ago and was able to get the ban overturned.

Interesting. How did you do that? Does the "Contact US" form really work?

https://www.reddit.com/appeals

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

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using Reddit since the beginning, and I still use and like it, but your ban for saying “using php is stupid” comment resonates. One of my biggest Reddit pet peeves is downvoting or punitive mod action in response to subjective opinions. It’s not a new problem, and it’s one that can happen in any forum with downvoting, but it drives me nuts. The downvote is not a disagree button!

>>The downvote is not a disagree button! Downvote is a disagree button as it is perceived as such and that is an issue. Same functionality is in NH - it just has a higher treshold when you can use it, but not really that different in essence. Banning for arguing is normal - from the times, when early web forums existed. Banning can be for any reasons - disagreeing with mod, arguing with someone, who is friends with m…

Well I disagree but I understand your golden rule so I'll downvote you since this is the behavior you are requesting. Please note that I don't want you to reciprocate. To me downvotes mean I posted something irrelevant or forgot to be polite.

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

#149
post #87

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…

Shadow banning is such a disgusting practice. It's basically sweeping the "problem" under the rug, whilst leaving the "problem" completely in the dark with regards to what it was they did wrong. It's lazy, it's abusive, and it should be illegal. Edit: to clarify, I'm totally fine with this tool being employed to combat spam(bots). Just not against normal posters/contributors.

I don't disagree with you, let's play devils advocate: To be fair to the companies, the amount of work to fight off bots and bad accounts is quite complicated, costly (both financially, quality of site, reputation wise) and similar to all kinds of frauds gets increasingly more challenging as the fraudsters improve their game. Add in managing the people who are purposely incendiary and not bots.

The amount of people getting caught up in the filter is likely quite small. Should they have a better system to get accounts re-activated? Probably - would make sense that they cast a wide net and then have a relatively easy way out for real individuals who can prove identify. Is that perfect? Heck no.

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

#150
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downvote button is Reddit's second biggest problem. It was meant to signal that a piece of content was either off-topic or broke a rule, as a way to alleviate the pressure of moderation. That's a fine theory, but it's simply not possible in an anonymous and unaccountable environment. It increases the trolling and makes it easy for bad actors to both control competitor content and promote their own.

Slashdot's mod points award system had pretty good noise rejection, but it too eventually succumbed to the dumbening.

"Mod points award" is interesting. It basically incents the awardee to put quite a bit of thought behind their moderation decisions, but the flip side is that you get far fewer datapoints per comment. Perhaps there might be a way to use both systems concurrently.
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