Context:

/r/ProgrammerHumor/ closed for a couple of days, then - "because mods have to listen to the community or otherwise they get replaced by more /u/Spez compliant mods" opened up again, and held a voting which new rules to enforce. The sub opened up with the new rule allTitlesMustBeCamelCase.

I made the first post about 15 minutes after the sub re-opened (because I'm in their discord, I was aware it opened up again, it wasn't announced yet, I think) - and of course I just make a shit-post about John Oliver since it's the /r/pics (and a bunch of other) subreddits way to protesting the API changes.

It wasn't even that good of a post to be honest, it got temporary taken down by the subs' mods since they mentioned "it's only anecdotally related [to programmer humor]" - but after messaging them explaining the context they put it back up. So it's basically approved by the moderators of the subreddit. And not against the content policy of the sub

It got like 3k upvotes in about an hour, so I got a message from some bot that I was on the frontpage of /all/ as well. At the end of the day it had 13.5k upvotes

About 48 hours later I got an automated message:

Your account has been permanently suspended for breaking the rules. This account is permanently suspended due to violations of Reddit's content policy

I posted an "appeal" basically just asking "Lol you banned me for posting John Oliver?"

And the only response I got was:

Thanks for submitting an appeal to the Reddit admin team. We have reviewed your request and unfortunately, your appeal will not be granted and your suspension will remain in place. For future reference, we recommend you to familiarize yourself with Reddit's Content Policy. -Reddit Admin Team This is an automated message; responses will not be received by Reddit admins.

I posted another "appeal" yesterday asking "Could you clarify which Content Policy rule I broke?" To which they haven't responded yet.

It's the only post I made in the last 2 weeks, so there wasn't any other reason to suddenly ban me besides this post...

My reddit account was 12 years old at this point. I was going to leave anyways because the Reddit client I use (sync) already announced it would be shutting down June 30 - so I don't care that much that they banned me - just though it was a pretty weird approach from the Reddit Admins to start banning people for getting John Oliver on the front-page

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[–] 27 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Congratulations! There should be "Banned from Reddit" medals on Lemmy/Mastodon/kbin

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago

    Custom medals for an instance that admins/mods could give to accounts or posts would be cool, might be a way for admins to reward/push good content. Kind of like reddit mod awards except you don't have to give money to a jagoff to do it.

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  • [–] 26 points 3 years ago* (10 children)

    That's fucking ridiculous. Maybe we should all start posting this meme and get ourselves banned.

    Reach out to The Verge, they've been covering the Reddit debacle pretty well and I bet they'd love to hear from you.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 3 years ago (9 children)

    I'm hoping they're still going to respond to the appeal, as my first appeal wasn't really a real one, just basically a "lol wtf?" one... Considering maybe it was just one random "hardcore" rogue admin on a banning spree for things they didn't like. - And that if I just submitted an appeal another admin would see it and unban me. But that didn't go as expected

    So I'm hoping they at least answer the second appeal asking to give me a reason. I'm curious if they're going to admit it's for the John Oliver post, or if they're going to pull something from the history and be like "2 years ago you said something mildly problematic we just discovered" - or most likely, just keep it vague and say I violated the content policy without explanation

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  • [–] 20 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    My reddit account was 12 years old at this point

    I'm guessing that's a big reason why. You know what Reddit used to be like, and that's not where they want it now, so you're more of a liability than an asset. They'd rather grow their userbase with millions of new users who will adapt to whatever shitty platform they're continuing to morph into.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Reddit is really not backing down, huh? Welp slaps knee i guess I'm leaving for good.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    I had kind of already started detaching from Reddit (moving it from my bookmarks so I don't click by habbit, uninstalling on phone, etc).

    Really liking Lemmy so far, especially with all the recent/ future improvements.

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    [–] 15 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    I like how they permanently banned your account, it's against their rules to make a new account to circumvent a ban, then said "for future reference please read our comment content policy".

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    [–] 14 points 3 years ago

    I'm sure Reddit will remain for many years, but I seriously hope this is the beginning of a major shift in peoples approach to large sites like them. Many smaller communities can only be a good thing for the internet. Lemmy/Beehaw are exactly what I hope become more commonplace. Mega social media platforms all need to go.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago (18 children)

    By the way, sync for Lemmy is coming ;)

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago* (6 children)

    But why use a proprietary app when there are awesome people making Free and Open Source applications? For example Jerboa or wefwef.app. Anyone can audit their source code and make sure they don't spy on you or do anything malicious.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Because the developer has years of experience in crafting a near perfect app for Reddit, much of which applies to Lemmy as well.

    Over the years this dev definitely earned the community's trust and I see no reason to assume he will pull sneaky shit now.

    FOSS is awesome, but I kind of dislike the militant push towards it here on Lemmy. As soon as someone does not release their source code people go "But have you thought about open source?", "Why not open source?", "No source, no install" and the likes.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (9 children)

    I'm not so sure about that...

    I've been nagging /u/ljdawson (the sync dev) to comment on whether he'd open-source sync or whether he'd make it compatible with Lemmy: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/comments/145vvjg/reddit_clients_can_support_lemmy_just_by_changing/jnog4ag/?context=3

    The news so far is

    No plans to open source right now but potentially lemmy

    ReVanced has patched sync to be compatible with any reddit API key, in case /u/ljdawson nukes it. And people have been working on decompiling sync and making it compatible with lemmy, and then recompiling it, but that's not a long term solution. Making large changes on decompiled source is not ideal in the long run. Best case scenario would be for sync to become open source

    Edit: Apparently I was wrong and the actual reddit sync dev is making a "sync for Lemmy". The context here for preferring an "open source reddit sync" was that - if there wouldn't be an official app - it would make it a lot easier for the community to port reddit sync to Lenny from open-source, instead of having to do it from a decompiled closed-source."

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    [–] 12 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    I like how instead of banned they say permanently suspended

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    [–] 12 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    reddit admins have been going on a purge like ive never seen. welcome to the club!

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    We have reviewed your request [...] This is an automated message

    Schrödingers appeal

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    [+] 10 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)
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    [–] 9 points 3 years ago (9 children)

    Arbitrary enforcement of the rules is the main problem here.

    Reddit can be thought of as a three tier hierarchy, in decreasing order of power:

    1. Layer 1 is the admins
    2. Layer 2 is the subreddit mods
    3. Layer 3 is the users.

    Now, the admins have the interest of having the mods and users work for them for free to generate contents. To do that, their best interest is to have Layer 2 and 3 constantly in conflict with each other so they won't turn their attention to what's going on in Layer 1, and they can just step in as needed as "the good guys" when things get out of hand.

    (Don't say the name of the book please)

    The way they did that, is of course, by making a "Layer 1.5", the so called powermods, and promises them arbitrary powers that they can abuse (delete and then repost other's content, blatant karma farming) to have the attention and the hate from Layer 2 and 3 on them instead of Layer 1, and so they can get away with whatever they want for flimsy excuses. (closing source code, shadowbans for real people, quarantine, awards, NFTs, new reddit, etc.)

    Previous attempts at leaving reddit (Pao, controversies surrounding other various hate subs) failed because only Level 3 and a few lower member of Level 2 were responsive to the problems, most people are just indifferent and want to have reddit the way it is now, so Layer 1 can just pled ignorance and have people move on.

    So, what's different this time? This time both Layer 2 and 3 are collectively moving against Layer 1 for the very first time, and to maintain the illusion of normalcy would require more direct interventions from Layer 1 since playing dumb is no longer an option. Of course, powermods (all around bad person awkwardtheturtle, for example) outlived their usefulness as distraction, so they can now be arbitrarily disposed of as well.

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    [–] 8 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    If this is true it's insane.

    That post is actually funny IMO, how thin skinned do you have to be to suspend people permanently for that? It obviously doesn't break any rules. If it was ambiguous whether it did, a warning would be more fitting.

    Yes I can see it's not directly about programming, but close enough IMO.

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    [–] 7 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    They ban for anything but yet /askthedonald /politicalcompass and /conservative still exist

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    [–] 7 points 3 years ago

    They did you a favor

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Time to request full gdpr info. Also they don't delete your posts if you request account deletion and tell you to do it yourself.

    After the request tell them through an E-Mail to delete every single comment with remotely identifiying info for you since you dont have access.

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    [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    Holy shit! That's a great story, what a way to go out!

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Instead of deleting my Reddit account, I’m editing my posts/replies there to all say, “edit: //I’ve moved to lemmy //” By doing this you’re:

    1. Denying Reddit your content
    2. Telling everyone where you went and
    3. Your post Karma stays the same, so a highly upvoted comment of yours stays in the same place in the comment thread.
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    [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    Yeah I’m permabanned from Reddit too for similar stupidity. Nothing of value was lost for me though.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    Yep, i was permabanned a week ago because i was all in on this boycott/ Fuck u/Spez. Not looking back, i hope Reddit crashes and burns. They are treating the users like garbage and not needed when we are what makes the site what it is.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Eh... damage control, "Hey, we've got enough of this shit and we saw you on the front page so get nuked nerd", etcetc. If anything, that'll be a nice thing to tell to you grandsons, "Back in the day I got lots of fake internet points and got nuked into oblivion because I made a pun out of a random person."

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    [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    Reddit is amassing such a clusterfuck of bad decisions lately... 🤦🏻‍♂️

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    That’s extra-absurd considering it is related to programming and is actually funny. They must be feeling very sensitive over there these days.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    Hahahahaha fuck Reddit man

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    I was shadow banned by an admin, apparently the masterpiece of spez getting raided by a Garfield with a rack offended someone. 🤔

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago*

    My Reddit account was permabanned because I posted (about a guy who killed a teenager who came to his house) "You know, I've changed my mind. Give this guy the chair. Not as a punishment but as a mercy. If I had grandkids like that I'd want to be mercy killed too!" The grandkid I was referring to was a screenshot of his grandon's Twitter calling him a Nazi.

    Banned for "inciting violence" or some horse shit. Appealed for 30 days straight, now every one of my appeals is instantly denied by some bot.

    Just be glad you don't have to spend more time in that shithole.

    Redditor for 13 years I think. Same username as the one I sport on here.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    I posted an Oliver pic, maybe I'll get that account banned. Reddit bans are pretty stupid. One of my accounts, the oldest one, is permabanned for telling off a racist. I didn't even cross a line, I just told them that if they're gonna be racist, that's all they're going to be and anything else they have to say doesn't matter.

    I've been saying this a lot over the last few weeks: Reddit is a tool. Just use it on your own terms. Reddit admins legally own the site, but fuck them, if you wanna use their tool, use it. Just let the behavior of the tool guide how you decide to use it. As it is, I still use it, but it will change next month and I won't be downloading the official app, so I won't use it as much, and I will no longer be a "feature" of the site, as in the subs where I was only there to contribute to the site, I have left. The subs that are still useful to me, I keep. If they ban me, I will just use one of the accounts they don't even know is me and I will pare my subscriptions down to only the subs that don't have a strong community elsewhere. I also will only interact with the site in ways that allow me to block all ads.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    At least they told you you were banned. I was shadowbanned and didn't figure it out for a week.

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    [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    A similar thing happened to me about 3 weeks ago. Yet I have no clue as to why I was banned... just "boke content policy rule" with no explanation of what rule... So I moved on.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    Man they really are a bunch of nazis now.

    edit: banning someone permanently from reddit for posting a john oliver post is total nazi move

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Their content is mainly old recycled posts. It’s like watching a train wreck in slo-mo.

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