Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#1

Post by boundchecked » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

Sharing this funny story so that people won't feel alone when it happen to them.

It seems my first and only reddit account created two hours ago is shadow-banned since the very beginning, tried one comment on /r/cpp and one post on /r/rust, nobody ever seen them other than one kind mod that confirmed there's nothing they can do.

Even funnier is that there is a subreddit /r/ShadowBan dedicated to test shadowban and some obvious spam-bot accounts are not banned yet mine is.

related: [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30344907 [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/modhelp/comments/oonfba/

EDIT: now this post got flagged as well, the funny continues.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#2

Post by joelrunyon » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

I've noticed instagram does this too.

You try to create a second account and they will "suspend" you automatically and force you through a verification system.

Their spam algorithms have to be better than this...

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#3

Post by notRobot » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

joelrunyon wrote: post #2

I've noticed instagram does this too. You try to create a second account and they will "suspend" you automatically and force you through a verification system. Their spam algorithms have to be better than this...

Yes, I went through this just yesterday while trying to set up a company account. To get it unblocked I had to:

* Verify an email address through an OTP.

* Verify a phone number through an OTP.

* Upload a picture of me with my face in it, holding a piece of paper with my name, username and a six digit code they gave me written on it.

I'm very pissed.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#4

Post by koolba » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

Is this done globally by Reddit itself or is applied individually by subs to new accounts?

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#5

Post by lausbub » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

I'm not 100% sure, but Reddit seems to shadowban accounts created from some IPs based on some reputation score. Perhaps malicious activity is occurring on your network due to malware?

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#6

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

joelrunyon wrote: post #2

I've noticed instagram does this too. You try to create a second account and they will "suspend" you automatically and force you through a verification system. Their spam algorithms have to be better than this...

It's not just related to spam, it's also a great opportunity to collect personal data under the excuse of "security", just like they insist you enable SMS 2FA (for some reason they never insist so much about TOTP or WebAuthn/U2F 2FA, since those can't be abused to get the user's phone number).

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#7

Post by ericfrazier » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

Reddit, she ded

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#8

Post by tomatotomato37 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

lausbub wrote: post #5

I'm not 100% sure, but Reddit seems to shadowban accounts created from some IPs based on some reputation score. Perhaps malicious activity is occurring on your network due to malware?

May have also been unlucky enough to be reallocated someone else's toxic IP when his ISP changed his dynamic IP. That's happened to me a couple times

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#9

Post by sounds_like_hn » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit shadowban account upon creation

#10

Post by haunter » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

Maybe just me but I'm starting to doubt any "name-and-shame" Tell HN posts from throwaway accounts.

If you are a regular here and have a proper account then why did you make a throwaway for this? If you are not a regular here then why do you make a name-and-shame post as your first post?