After spending multiple hours on reddit putting up with karma limits and a 1 comment/10 minutes limit, I discovered I was shadow-banned for using a VPN the whole time!
I’ve also had some quite unfair removals of posts (in my pov) and bans after trying to re-post it without the part that is supposedly against their rules. Ex: making a post about ‘y medication causes side-effect x’, post gets removed for misinformation, because the moderator doesn’t believe it’s caused by the medication. Even after I provide some supporting studies. I re-word the post to ‘I had this side effect x from this medication y, it could be rare and might not happen to you’, and post it again. I get permanently banned for spam.
Felt like he couldn’t accept that he is in the wrong/ that it’s a possible side-effect of his beloved medication.
I was utterly frustrated at the time, since I wanted to warn others about the serious side-effect and be heard and not dismissed for what happened to me. I PM the mod about how he is a power-abusing (/power-hungry), egotistical (and possibly dumb, since he might not have understood how the medication can cause such side-effects even after explaining it to him, lol) person for not being able to admit that he is in the wrong. Because instead of discussing it and replying to the evidence I provided, he deleted the post. And also deleted any subsequent remakes that would “follow the rules better”. No profanity outside of the insults I outlined here.
Stupid decision, I know, lol. But I just, in the heat-of-the-moment, wanted to stick it to him.
I also went (unwisely) to rant some about it onto a few other subreddits. I get a site-wide temp ban. Feeling frustrated I go on an alt a good while later to make a post that is worded very differently. Well, I end up site-wide permabanned for evasion (who would have guessed?). Stupid choices, I know, in hindsight.
But yeah, I don’t have the motivation anymore to suck up to these mods and the system. Having to put so much effort into gaining karma at first and then having to tiptoe around and make sure you don’t offend the mods. Having to follow such strict rules in each subreddit when you are trying to help other people benefit from your own experiences. And reddit freely using all the content you post for their own goals of data-scraping, profiling etc. anyway. Just taking any effort you put in and not valuing you at all for it. Also, the echo-chamber nature of it all.
I don’t want to put up with it anymore. (For now at least, lol)
I understand why I got the penalties I got, now in hindsight. But I still think it’s pretty unfair to get such harsh penalties so quickly for a situation that seems so nuanced.
Reddit feels almost like an abusive relationship at times. Where you are not being listened to and often not respected, but are expected to follow a huge number of changing rules, tiptoe around, and please the abuser and their whims. Lmao
Rant over
Edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention, they’ve removed all the subreddits or channels for any complaints against moderation on reddit. There used to be subreddits like r/moderationmediation and others where you could complain about and try to get help against (bad) moderation. But all those channels and subreddits have been banned! But of course there are tons of subreddits and channels for moderators themselves to got to for help and support, that are still very much up and running, a ton of them! r/modsupport, some subreddits for new moderators, for discussing moderation cases and 10’s more! And these definitely have basically only one viewpoint represented, from the moderator side.
Edit 2: Also, if you think that I deserve the bans or just acted foolishly on my end, please do tell me and explain why etc. I just ask you to be respectful. I’m completely open to that after balancing out from the emotions.
There’s another level of skullduggery that few people know about. Mods have some sort of other trick up their sleeve to shadowban you.
It’s not any of reddit’s usual filters like VPN or alt account detection. It’s some trick that mods exploit that immediately auto hides your posts/comments. I have no clue how it works though. Cause you know, nobody else seems know or talk about it ever.
I’ve seen it used when they really don’t like what someone is saying. In other words when they want to control the narrative. Such as not liking whatever thing about medication side effects that you wanted to post.
I’m pretty sure even posting about this has gotten that account of mine on their secret shadowban list. One time a mod was even downvoting my comments even though my posts were immediately being autohidden on their sub. Nobody else can see hidden comments except mods so it could only be them. So petty.
What I’m getting at is that reddit is fucked beyond fuckery. I know the lot of us we were all super attached to the idea of a big messageboard but that idea died a long time ago. We’re habituated to posting on there and going bakc there to read posts on here.
Maybe say whatever you got to say on the fedeverse. Even if it seems like nobody is looking, just post it. The internet was originally made by people posting into the void. Little by little more people came looking.
Why would you expose yourself to that?
I was there in 2008 … I have 12 year club badge … I left with the whole CEO drama.
Don’t play their game bro, the only winning move is not to play.
I agree
You must have missed the point where we’ve overstayed our welcome.
If it causes pain, stop doing it.
Yeah, for some reason I tend to put up with shit for a lot longer than most people.
As someone who has also been permbanned from reddit for having one of the most mildest takes (saying that Nazis are losers), the only guaranteed way to post and comment on reddit without being banned is if you are a bot or someone who runs bot accounts. Admins will roll out the red carpet for you.
The platform is a shithole and is best left behind.
Can you be a bit more concrete? Which medication causes what side effect?
It better not involve autism.
Oh no, NOT THAT! xD
OK that’s all I wanted to know
Sigh, well I guess I have to be open if you guys are going to believe me. SSRI causing gynecomastia/ pseudo-gynecomastia.
I’d rather not go into the specifics here. But there are studies and documented cases of the same medication having that side-effect for others! It’s just not well-known and possibly rare? The second part is a bit unclear, if it is just under-reported.
Trust all of us here. There are much bigger things in life. It’s hard to move on knowing how unfair, unbalanced and completely corrupted social medias are out there… But all you can do is share in the fellow sympathy of others and know that you are a pleb like the rest of us and it won’t really change.
