this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2023
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I have been supporting Lemmy recently a lot and made posts about Lemmy that got big reach. Today, sadly the reddit account through which, I moderated a lot of subs and spent time on, comes to an end. The reason was because I spammed according to reddit, but the reality is that they have censored me because I was hurting Reddit.

Asking multiple third-party app devs consider Lemmy + Made the same post here as well

I never thought this would happen, not that I didn't completely expect it (but maybe not this soon and sudden), after all Reddit is known for censorship, and the fact that Reddit admins have absolute power over this website makes this believable. But part of me, misses that reddit account, it has been special to me, as I've spent countless of hours spending my personal time to moderate and improve communities that helped Reddit thrive. I moderated as many subs as over 25, many of them had atleast over 1k people, some as many as 200k if not more.

Before this happened, suspiciously, they banned r/LemmyMigration today early morning,

it remained banned for a few hours and returned back to normal (not weird at all). I thought that was a mistake, as the sub was back to normal unbanned, but it seems like the Reddit admins realized if they banned my sub, that would prove how they censor it, it can work against them. Now, it seems like they have realized that bringing my account down would be more effective, and stop me from possibly sharing how they censored my sub on other subs for example.

It's a shame, and part of me is sad, everything I worked hard for was taken away by them all of a sudden. I wanted to bring some of my communities here, now everything is gone, and it feels more like starting from scratch (Or discuss with mods I am still in contact with, and get help to bring communities I was planning on bring here, but it certainly makes things harder, not giving up anyways, especially not after this).

BTW I have filled an appeal, but I don't expect this to be reversed, this was planned by the Reddit admins and all they have to do is ignore my appeal, there is nothing more I can do to get my account back, and they just got rid of someone who was pinpointing some of their biggest flaws and potentially dangering their platform's dominance in the "aggregation and discussion platforms" market.

A note to all refugees and ex-redditors here, or those who are planning to join Lemmy - See the power a centralized corporation like Reddit holds. With a decentralized alternative like Lemmy, you can host your own instance or join another one if you get censored, with lemmy, we can put more power back in the hands of the people.

I don't have much else to say, moving on I will have to work with mods left that I do know through external platforms like Discord and try to bring some communities here. I hope this does not happen to any other moderator who have spend countless of hours helping Reddit in-directly like I did, somehow escaping such a suspension.

EDIT: There is some controversy in the comments if I actually spammed, I don't think I spammed at all, I only made a post on r/ApolloApp, it became a hit so I cross-posted it to other third-party app subs, just so that it can hopefully reach out to the respective developers for them to possibly consider Lemmy in the wake of new reddit API changes.

I was also certainly not the only one mentioning alternatives like Lemmy on the r/Apolloapp or any other third-party app sub, in-fact many people were mentioning alternatives, though I was banned, also my community r/LemmyMigration as mentioned above was called spam (and was temporarily banned, but was weirdly brought back up just to put my account down later today afternoon) when it only had 2 posts today morning. To me, "spam" seems like it is only used as a cover up by Reddit, the real reason is that my posts, just like r/LemmyMigration, was about Lemmy, a competition to Reddit.

Also if it was really spam, as soon as I cross-posted my post from r/apolloapp to the other subs, the mods would have removed it well before they got a lot of attention, why didn't they?

EDIT 2: A user called @danke has been spreading misinformation about me in the comments:

Just as you did on your newly created reddit alt, you’re painting this lie that you were banned for your tiny no-name subreddit and not for spamming this garbage on 11 different mobile app subreddits in quick succession. It’s truly like clockwork for sitebanned users to lie and omit these massive details.

This is a blatant lie, I mentioned about the cross-posts right IN THIS post: "Asking multiple third-party app devs consider Lemmy + Made the same post here as well"

As you can see, I made the post right here and on reddit, i never missed any details.

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[–] neytjs@lemmy.ml 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is another good reason to stop using reddit. The internet used to have millions of active message boards for discussion of numerous topics. Reddit has essentially become one giant message board to rule them all. The world does not need this. Best to help decentralize the internet by promoting alternatives.

[–] Lowey@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One of the reason reddit rose from these boards was persistence, boards were all over the place and no sureness if they will stay tomorrow. It seems reddit posts now have the same fate.

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[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is showing that they know about Lemmy, which to a huge corporation like that is huge. It means they're starting to take it seriously.

Good. Let them sweat.

Sorry you had your account taken away because of it. I'll use my throwaways now to evangelize it.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They absolutely know about us, probably from a long time ago, but especially in this past week, with lemmy getting posted everywhere.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They've done an amazing job at burning their community. They think 3rd party apps are only used by super nerds (or at least many of the people I've talked to do), but I think they forgot who provides most of the content.

Well, bots now, but good content usually came from the super nerds

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Sometimes I do get a bit doomerist about it. If reddit is to be believed, they claim something like < 20% of people use old.reddit, or mobile apps. That seems incredibly low to me, but I must admit most of the people who I encounter IRL that use reddit don't know about old reddit, RES, or other apps.

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[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Just got banned from a meme sub for making a meme about moving to Lemmy... Even tho the sub is participating in the blackout. Go figure.

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[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago

I'm advertising Lemmy on every popular post on my 11 year old account.. I'm already through the painful part of the breakup, and have moved on to better things. Go ahead and ban me Reddit

[–] Veritas@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I was shadowbanned just for upvoting your posts. I've tried posting in many subreddits where I used to be able to post before, but I don't see my posts from other accounts. I haven't received any messages or warnings indicating that I have been banned.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Things are definitely starting to get weird there, my account is starting to act up, not fetching posts, just had a popup and it went away in chat for "Cannot get info on banned users".

It's Monday morning. Something tells me some new directives came down from on high about competitor talk.

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[–] this@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

I just ran powerdelete suit on my reddit accounts and replaced all of my posts/comments with ones urging users to join lemmy. I was going to wait until July 1rst but if reddit is going to get that serious, then so am I. I am OUT!

[–] Archit@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago

Reddit deserves this.

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[–] redditrefugee@lemmy.one 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reddit permanently suspended all of my accounts because I said Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a cunt for not retiring when she had the chance. R/politics banned that account, and then a few weeks later I'd forgotten about that incident and commented in another post from a different account. That's when reddit permabanned all of my accounts.

I've been on reddit since August 2008 when Randal Monroe published this xkcd about it: https://xkcd.com/477/

Bonus link: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/71v7z/typewriter_xkcd/

15 fucking years on that site and they ban all my accounts and devices, then third party apps, porn, and who knows what else. Good riddance.

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[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

"Spam" reeks of weak horseshit justification for reddit's actions here. Lots of people x-post all sorts of things all the time. They were itching for a legitimate-sounding reason to ban you and they just reached for the first thing they could find using the loosest possible definition.

[–] JshKlsn@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It is. Have you seen any of those onlyfans girls Reddit accounts? They post the same photo over 100x per day to all different subs. If you scroll down their profile, you can scroll for a good solid 5 minutes before you reach 7 days ago.

This isn't about spam. Spam gets caught in filters. Spammers get shadow banned.

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[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If this is true, this is probably an anti competitive practice and you can report it to regulation authorities in the US and EU, you might want to consult some non profit that deals with open source and free software for legal advice.

[–] JshKlsn@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you can report it to regulation authorities in the US

Funny you think the US cares.

[–] Jumuta@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Louis Rossmann's lobbying videos have made me lose all of my trust in the integrity of the US government tbh

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[–] Kory@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

Sorry to hear that, I can hardly imagine how that feels. Well, their loss, our win.

[–] GuyDudeman@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This means they're scared. It means we're winning.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
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[–] nhgeek@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

All hail Lemmy. I really hope it gets the critical mass it needs after these shenanigans.

[–] cavemeat@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago

Today I'm gonna run one of those edit and delete scripts for reddit accounts, and I want my last message to be one promoting this place as a viable alternative :).

[–] autisticaudioguy@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Welp, I wuppose now is a good a time as any to delete my entire reddit accounts histories. Fuck em.

[–] JshKlsn@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Bro, I am perma IP banned from Reddit and so is every single account that has ever been used while connected to my internet.

Reddit is garbage as hell.

EDIT:

BTW I have filled an appeal, but I don’t expect this to be reversed

They wont. My friends who were banned after connecting to my WiFi appealed, and Reddit declined their appeal. They legit did NOTHING wrong, and Reddit doesn't care.

Sorry about your account.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow. I thought it was bad when I got a week-long suspension for telling an admin, who was not using their admin account, to fuck off because he was sea-lioning me in a discussion thread. But perma-banned because you visited someone?

Ridiculous.

[–] JshKlsn@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To make it clear I was banned because I told a mod on /r/Android that I preferred a Pixel over a Samsung Galaxy. I was banned, forgot about it, was logged in with one of my alts (a business account), and commented.

Reddit temporarily banned me for "ban evasion", but my friends didn't know about this, and when they came over and used their phones, when they commented, it turned the temporary "ban evasion" ban into a perma IP ban.

All of my business and alt accounts, my girlfriends account, all of my friends accounts, all perma-banned.

Something else interesting? I was going through my old screenshots last night, found a screenshot I took from 2020 on an account I forgot I had, and I went and looked, and it too was suspended. Weirdest part, was I moved, got a new IP, and haven't even logged into that account for nearly 3 years. Reddit just blanket banned every single account that touched my current IP, and every account that has connected to the same internet as my JshKlsn account in the past.

Fucking wild. They are scorched earthing everything lol.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jesus.

You know, I'm a year on the fediverse now, and I've watched months and months of pearl clutching over Mastodon defederations as trans-safe instances have blocked servers with admins that host TERFs and other transphobic accounts.

This has been contextualized by many as "thin skinned admins having power trips" by people who have never watched a thin skinned admin have a power trip.

And I thought I'd seen thin skinned admins have power trips before over 15 years on various message boards. Shit, I thought I'd had a couple of power trips on days when my skin's been thin back on IRC.

But that's setting a new standard for me.

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[–] Skimmer5728@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago

fuck reddit. lemmy ftw!

[–] WD40@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago

This is unsurprising, sadly. Reddit’s moderation is a joke, and they’re very well known for putting down oppositional posts and users. With the impending public offering this is only going to get worse.

[–] Krause@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cracking down on people advertising it is a sign of weakness, they're afraid and need to limit people spreading the word. Hopefully the coordinated moderation strike that a lot of subs are doing makes a dent on their user base, I hope people really move to federated alternatives this time instead of staying on the hostile platform/just crossposting like it happened with the Twitter/Mastodon thing.

[–] Boobajoob@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

That sucks dude. Fuck Reddit

[–] seirim@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, can I share this story on Reddit? Will try

[–] vulfneck@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
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[–] sexy_peach@feddit.de 12 points 1 year ago

Damn, that's some weak shit on their parts. Also temporarily banning LemmyMigration? LMAO

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm really sorry to hear about this. This is really sad and pathetic on Reddit's part.

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[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I don't trust the reason for your ban completely, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on this.

That's shitty and I've been in your shoes (being banned on the shittiest way*), but on a lighter side it shows that promoting Lemmy there has an effect!

I think that "we" (i.e. people who are trying to convince people to migrate) should be doing this harder. Like, mentioning that you've been using Lemmy and other instances in the app subreddits, encouraging people to migrate, highlight other issues that happened and will happen with Reddit, this kind of stuff. A lot of us will be banned under shitty excuses... but frankly? Consider it as a badge.

* What pissed me in that case wasn't even the ban, but which accounts were banned. They banned all my accounts, regardless of recent activity, except the one that I used for mod duties. "We don't want you, but we still want your free worker, you sucker" doesn't work for me. (I don't regret dropping the mod duties on the spot then.)

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[–] stanleytweedle@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago

It'd be fun to have Lemmy 'flair' for people banned from Reddit for promoting Lemmy.

[–] AnEilifintChorcra@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty sure Reddit can't ban people for promoting/linking to competitors sites as there is EU regulations in place to prevent this.

This issue was raised when Twitter tried to stop people from linking to their Mastodon accounts. Twitter put the policy in place and then quietly removed it soon after.

If you really believe that you were banned for promoting Lemmy then you should mention this in your appeal but as others have mentioned it seems like the issue was spam.

And sure maybe they were waiting for any reason they could get to ban you because you were promoting Lemmy and they got you on spam, always gotta read the contract/TOS to make sure the other party doesn't get you on a technicality

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[–] Lowey@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

So, this might or might not provoke the Streisand effect? At either case it's important to post links to your alternative accounts on different platforms on your bio and put it in archive.org + archive.today for ban reasons. Anyone on any platform can get banned, it's important to have a plan for that. Hope you can recover at least partial/full of what was banned.

[–] const_void@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reddit is trash. Reddit admins are trash.

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[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Shameless promotion of my new community: SNOOcalypse. I created it so people can discuss Reddit's downfall, as it's kind of off-topic for /c/opensource, and plus I want to see some activity coming from people who want to get rid of Reddit.

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