politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
When I first saw shadowbanning used, it was targeted at spammers. Spammers know their behavior is unwelcome, expect to get banned, and have probably figured out how to make new accounts despite attempts to stop them. Making it harder for them to tell when they've been banned slows them down and reduces spam.
Trolls share the same traits, and it's probably a good fit for them as well.
Any serious attempt at spamming would have mechanisms in place to check for shadow banning. For example, on reddit if I am shadow banned and post a comment, nobody else can see my comment. So I'm a prospective spammer and I have 25 accounts posting spam on a bunch of random threads.
What do I do? I get a few accounts as controls and everytime I post something, I automatically open up the webpage using some sort of webscraper/emulator library like Puppeteer/Selenium and then confirm whether my comment shows up on my control accounts. If my post doesn't show up in a certain threshold of checks, I scrap that account and start using a fresh one.
Maybe it stops the most basic spammers, but I don't think it's worth the collateral damage to individuals. Many people's main form of communications with the outside world is through the internet. I've seen cases of people on reddit being shadowbanned for over a year and posting a comment nearly every day with no response.
I think it's approaching psychological torture. Even if someone says something that deserves to be banned - I think you should simply tell them what they did wrong and ban them.