It may not be that long compared to some of yours out here. It stings because that account was my main account, so many memories in it and I even met my wife through it. Unfortunately, I have recently experienced what I can only describe as sabotage on my account.
I don’t know much about how Reddit and moderation works behind the scenes but recently everything I post in different subs keeps getting auto-removed without any explanation whatsoever. If I message the mods of those subs, then there are only three responses: 1) no response whatsoever, 2) sarcasm and unkindness without actually assisting me, and worse 3) a permanent ban without further elaboration.
Googling “how to report abusive Reddit mods” comes up with a bunch of threads all saying the same thing: there is no way to report them. Additionally, I have encountered individuals who dismiss or deny the existence of moderator abuse within the platform. I’ve decided it’s just not worth my mental stress to put up with this circus and just start anew and keep a low profile. I’m also trying out here in Lemmy, maybe this is better.
Please be better.
You must log in or register to comment.
Just a heads up, Lemmy is not immune to the same problem. If there are rogue moderators, just like Reddit the only option you have is to message the instance admin or other moderators. If theyre all on the same team and the instance admin doesnt respond or agrees with their behaviour, then you’re in the same place you were with Reddit.
Also, Lemmy might have a chance at this being worse. AFAIK, on Reddit reports are anonymous. Moderators didnt know who reported what content. But on Lemmy, reports are NOT anonymous. While some argue this is helpful for identifying trolls/superfluous reporters, for the same reason it can also easily be weaponized by rogue moderators. The only thing Lemmy really has going for it is that its relatively small right now. But as its userbase grows, it will likely fall victim to the same user issues that Reddit has.
Upvotes and downvotes are also not anonymous to instance operators, which I really dislike.
But you are ignoring the biggest benefit to lemmy amd the fediverse. It’s not just one reddit with one /r/weirdfetish. It’s potentially infinite reddits with potentially infinite /r/weirdfetish. You sign up on one instance and can interact with (effectively) any other instance.
If a mod is abusive, report it to their instance admin. If the instance admin is abusive, subscribe to a community for the same topic on another instance. There’s like eight general tech news communities. If one is run by an asshole, use a different one.
Personally, I signed up at the dbzer0 instance, which is run by one of the former admins of the piracy subreddit. I can interact with lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, lemmy.ca, beehaw, hexbears, blahaj, sopuli, solarpunkd, shitjustworks, and a ton of other instances I’m forgetting. Each one has their own communities (subreddits), with a lot of overlap.
Any user I don’t like? I can block them. Any community I don’t like? I can block the specific community on the specific instance. A whole instance I don’t like? Can block the whole damn instance.
I agree that votes being public to admins should not be a thing.
But I think Lemmy’s great strength will also be its biggest weakness. Yes, any instance can have its own version of any community. But when you segregate and splinter communities like that you end up with basically all of them eventually being a desolate wasteland of one post a month and one really big one with all the activity. Then the one big one decides “we are leaving/going private,” and that basically kills everything. People might try other communities but most people want to be someplace active, and unless they all move to the same one you end up with less activity and less users very quickly.
Votes are public to not just to the original instance admins though but to any instance admin, right? If you setup your own instance and federate with another, then you should be able to view the votes for any communities on the one you federate with. The only privacy is that the default UI doesn’t display it, but a different UI could:
e.g. the one for this post on kbin.social that shows Lemmy upvotes as favorites.
I feel like this should be more prominently disclosed to Lemmy users.
It has been regularly announced to people every few weeks, might be time for a refresher indeed
t’s not just one reddit with one /r/weirdfetish. It’s potentially infinite reddits with potentially infinite /r/weirdfetish.
I’d argue that’s the biggest inhibitor. Sure the idea of a rogue mod on weirdfetish1 pisses you off so you go to weirdfetish2, but weirdfetish2 has 1/100th the user base of weirdfetish1. Instead of weirdfetish2 getting built up, the people who use it eventually just get bored and move on.
Also with reddit you could just make literally “/r/weirdfetish2” there’s nothing stopping you.
But mod actions are also available in the modlog, aren’t they?
I haven’t been here that long, but I’ve seen people question moderator activity a few times in ways that are not options on reddit at all.
Yeah, they are. But modlogs don’t mean anything if the other mods and instance admin agree with what the mod is doing. Or if they even know, or have enough time to logon and deal with it.
We’re talking about rogue moderators, though. Instances have their own separate moderation rules and that’s the intent behind how things are organized in the fediverse.
What OP experienced on reddit can’t happen here due to modlogs, and rogue moderation usually is called out here publicly.
Consistent issues with an instance also have the defederation option.
There are for sure problems with this all, but I wouldn’t say that rogue moderation is as easy here as it was on reddit.
Except you can get banned for something not in the rules. Some subs saying stuff like “no rules” and then keep banning people for memes. “No rules except don’t be a dick” and lots of regular people get bans anyway. There was even drama between startrek subs because that was happening. I managed to get a permaban on a community with an explanation saying “ACAB”. A public modlog doesn’t mean shit. A user can’t do much against powertripping mods. It absolutely is as easy as it was on reddit, even moreso because there is more of the same community on different instances.
Except on reddit you don’t even know you’re banned half the time, and have no way to find out.
All of what you’re describing happens on reddit and you wouldn’t even know for sure if your ACAB comment was the thing that got you banned.
I’m not saying that it’s fixed here. But it is improved more or less compared to reddit.
… What’s your point. OP said “lemmy isn’t immune to this problem”. I don’t care about whataboutism, we are talking lemmy now.
I didn’t get banned for saying “ACAB”. I got banned with the reason saying “ACAB”.
First, sorry I misunderstood your ACAB statement. It’s an unhelpful modlog comment to get, especially in a ban comment. Your experience sounds similar to OP’s and my response was rude to not acknowledge that.
I’ve been more responding to the upstream comment that “lemmy has a chance to be worse on this.”
What drove OP away from reddit wasn’t just that moderators abused their power. It was that abuse plus the complete lack of feedback and/or rude feedback.
I didn’t pick my phrasing carefully before as I meant to argue that lemmy only has the chance to be the same or better due to the modlog. Specifically it offers an option of transparency in moderation that reddit doesn’t.
Lemmy still has people who abuse power as mods. And it clearly has rude feedback as an option as you experienced. But for when it’s used appropriately that is better than what reddit can offer.
The original comment also claimed that reporting to the instance admin is your only recourse. But creating an account on another instance is a more drastic option that OP can take on lemmy and it’s not available on reddit.
And instance admins can use the federation system to block instances that aren’t compatible with their values or for other reasons.
My ultimate reasoning for arguing any of this is two parts.
- Lemmy is confusing sometimes with the features it offers above the reddit experience not being self explanatory.
- It felt like this thread was trying to scare OP away and I’d rather let OP know what’s here and hope for the best for them
To be honest I had a moderator ban me for proposing an improvement to the sub.
The modlog is public, but most people don’t care. And the instance admin didn’t want to get involved as that would be “admin power tripping” (which I understand)
What OP experienced on reddit can’t happen here due to modlogs, and rogue moderation usually is called out here publicly.
Why would that stop anything?
Because the problem OP experienced involves not knowing what’s going on and nobody believed them.
Its gonna be alright mang. Internet friends are intimate friends. If you are looking for any advice, save any energy you were going to put into trying to deal with the situation and redeeming reddit into this new place.
The coolest people on the internet are the ones going to the new thing. The first 1% to arrive are the ones likely making the content, making the platforms, building the culture. Once it gets to 5%, the culture take holds and it becomes a place, once it passes 20%, it quickly becomes mainstream, and the 1% are likely looking to dip, because its entered the geometric phase of growth. Before you know it, its at 60% and the cool kids have moved on.
A philosophy of non-attachment might help here, because this seems to be the way of things. From CL discussion boards, to SA, to newgrounds, Fark, Digg, tumblr, FB, insta, reddit, tiktok…
Its a cycle. Its fine. New things are made possible through the death of old things. This too, in time, will pass.
Internet friends are intimate friends.
Truth. I am grateful for all the random strangers out there throughout the years who have provided valuable insights on my posts seeking advice. We are strangers, so there’s no bias whatsoever. They gave me the cold hard truth that I needed to hear, even if I didn’t really realize it right away. It helps to have a complete stranger who knows nothing about me or what I’ve been through, a complete outsider, as they can provide a fresh and unbiased viewpoint on the situation at hand.
Also, I am checking out the song!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Internet friends are intimate friends
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I don’t have anything to add other than an anecdote:
I got permabanned from /r/askhistorians for having a “vulgar” username. Yeah, this one that I’m using now. I had been lurking for years, one time I commented a thank you to someone’s reply, and bam! I was gone.
Advice: be liberal with the block function here. It’s small enough to make a huge difference, and there are a lot of morons that you never need to see.
Also block the shit out of various subs here.
Doing those two things has made this place left with mostly decent, thoughtful people.
I personally block anyone spewing hate and aggression and anger. It’s wonderful.
I still have a 13-year Reddit account but I went from posting several times a week last year to never in the last few months because of abusive moderation. I got banned for a comment saying the US should take the money it gives Israel and give it to Ukraine instead, in those words (no hate speech, no rules broken). When I appealed the only reply was an insult, and when I messaged the mod team I got a 3-day site wide ban from the Reddit moderation team for harassment (I wasn’t abusive at all, just asked why I had been banned and for more feedback than a 4-word insult). I never received any other communication than being insulted, not even clarification on what rule I’d broken, so they lost me.
For what it’s worth, about a month in Lemmy feels more like old Reddit where you can have disagreements with people without mods stepping in and banning the side they disagree with. I keep it civil even in disagreement and so far so good. I only go back to Reddit to check on specialty boards (like video game tips etc) and don’t interact.
This may look like a good idea on the surface, but by doing so, the US signals to the rest of the world that they are not a safe place to keep your money. That would just accelerate the already large decline of the dollar as a global reserve currency. Why would any country after that trust the US to hold their money when they can just be cut off from it at any time for any reason the US chooses?
I think you misunderstood his suggestion. I didn’t read it as confiscating Israel’s assets in America, just diverting the aid the US sends them.
Yeah, in looking at it again, I see what you mean.
Edit: I know what happened. I got my wars mixed up. I was thinking Russia, Ukraine. Not Israel.
I got permabanned from r/Sinusitis for telling a mod that they are wrong for saying that a deviated septum can’t cause a sinus infection.
Dude claimed to be a sinus surgeon.
As far as lemmy goes:
Be careful. People will goad you into arguments so they can report you, and there absolutely are biased mods that will remove your posts/ban you for not even breaking any of the rules.
Sorry my Dude, had mine for a 3, Lemmy has been solid, lighter on content so far but I guess I just gotta post more.
I don’t know much about how Reddit and moderation works behind the scenes but recently everything I post in different subs keeps getting auto-removed without any explanation whatsoever. If I message the mods of those subs, then there are only three responses: 1) no response whatsoever, 2) sarcasm and unkindness without actually assisting me, and worse 3) a permanent ban without further elaboration.
If you were getting auto-removed on all subs you were either shadowbanned (Reddit admins thought you were a spammer or evading bans) or you were running afoul of commonly copied automod rules. Every sub has their own automod code, but there’s a lot of copying of rules, so you could just end up getting removed by the same rule copied to multiple subs. Some common rules remove content from new accounts or accounts without a certain amount of karma. Filters for slurs are pretty common as well.
If you were getting negative responses from all the mods, you either had really bad luck with the mods you contacted or something about your account made them think you weren’t joining their sub for positive interaction. Having a lot of negative karma or an initial post or history that looked like you were joining to fight the sub’s groupthink might get you sorted into the “don’t feel the trolls” bucket. Or you were shadowbanned and the mods just assumed you must have done something wrong. There’s no real rules on what legit modding is, so if they get a bad impression they won’t assume good faith and spend time explaining things.
Frankly, if everyone is being mean to you it seems kind of unlikely it was totally a “them” problem. A random mod getting off on abusing a user, ok, but multiple mods in different subs just picking on you for no good reason?
The thing about Moderators is: they are humans and humans can be complete fucking idiots from time to time. Some more than others.
The only time I got into some kind of trouble with moderators on Reddit (which I didn’t actually ask for) was when I got automatically banned from the BLM sub. After commenting on a shitpost sub. Telling a Nazi to stfu. Because people from that sub trolled them once. I immediately made fun of the moderators which got me blocked.
As far as I can say, there is no such function like a autobann on Lemmy. So moderators can’t punish you for yelling at racists somewhere else. Also the moderators here are way more chill. Especially on the German front. They post, engage with users, are friendly goofs. Good stuff.
Sooooo, welcome!
…
Smooches 💋
Goddamn the autobans from aimlessly/ironically commenting on a post were insufferable. I was also autobanned from the BLM sub for doing something similar to you.
Fuck Reddit mods, though. Those guys were all career mods running hundreds of subs with no interaction with any of them. They do it for the power and control over people.
I kept getting shadow banned because I linked to relevant on topic electoral reform videos and the site hates links for some reason.
What you’re describing is exactly what happened to my account. I started a really popular subreddit called r/keitruck. Go check it out. It’s still alive. I was smart enough to ask for help to keep it alive. But now I don’t know if that was smart. I much rather start a new one here or on its own server even. Anyway, as soon as it started getting popular I started getting the auto removed messages. One day I got just a ton of them. The next day I got banned from the entire site from all my accounts.
When I was on Reddit, I changed up accounts every 2 years. Just safer that way.
People underestimate how much information gets leaked out over the years. I switched accounts often.
Kinda curious what kind of posts you were making that got you this sort of treatment: maybe running up against some hyper specific filters?
Welcome here!
