I lurked Reddit for a long time before creating an account which is now over 6 years old. I was a ‘Top Contributor’ and in the rewards program. 89k karma, never promoted violence or targeted any group, but I got a 7-day ban which was followed up hours later with a permanent ban. This is because of a comment criticizing Senator Radcliffe, trump, and Musk. The comment included profanity, (I called them hypocrites and cunts), but it wasn’t directed at any user or marginalized group. Just harsh political commentary.
Reddit initially issued a 7-day ban, which I appealed. That appeal was approved, the comment was restored, and they admitted it didn’t violate the rules. But the permanent ban still stands, and my follow-up appeals on that have been ignored. No explanation. No transparency. Just gone.
It’s made me realize how fragile “free speech” is on platforms like Reddit. You can insult regular users and get away with it, say horrendously racist, misogynistic, and homophobic things, but speak too plainly about powerful people and suddenly you’re promoting “hate.”
I combed through the Reddit rules, and nothing I have ever commented or posted violates them.
That’s the reason I’m here on Lemmy now. I’m trying to read more, scroll less, and engage with platforms that aren’t actively censoring political dissent. Who else is in the same boat? Is there anything that can be done to hold Reddit accountable or make people aware of they way they are censoring speech? This is my first Lemmy post. I marked it NSFW because of the profanity.
My 11 year old account got banned and I’m not even sure why. I posed a lot over the years. They said I was banned, pointed to a deleted comment. When I asked what the comment said they replied the reviewed the ban and now I’m banned.
I believe it was for a comment about how America would be in trouble if they invaded Canada (I’m Canadian). I stated some basic facts that Canadians look like Americans and they will attack America on American soil. It was matter of fact, not promoting any sort of violence.
Whatever. America is dying. I suppose services hosted on American soil die right along with it. We’re actively avoiding as many US products and services as possible, so Reddit can kick rocks.
I discovered Lemmy, it suits my needs and I like it better.
right now, right wingers need to take over many western countries, and reddit wants to stop that discussion, at the behest of MUSK.
I’m starting to wonder if the head reddit weirdo is getting paid directly by Musk to enforce shit like this
nope, musk told reddit to “moderate more” and HUFFMAN agrees with him. huffmans loves Musk by the way.
I came here after they banned third party apps. No way I’m browsing with ads on their shitty app. RES still works fortunately but I’ve grown to really like it here. Haven’t touched reddit in a year or so.
i suggest browsing on a browser, like FF or a fork, with adblock on, not giving them any ad money. ironfox and fennex is a good fork.
thats what RES does-reddit enhancement suite on firefox. I combine that with adblock, ublock too. I go out of my way to make sure I mever see any ads anywhere I go, usually reddit/youtube.
I was banned from a sub for explaining why “globalist” is an antisemetic dogwhistle. They said my comment was hate speech but left up the one I responded to, dogwhistle and all.
When I asked the sub’s mods about the ruling, I was given a 3-day sitewide ban. I brought it to admins, and instead of any explanation, they responded by making that ban permanent.
I dont think there is any way they don’t know what they’re doing. Reddit is complicit.
i avoid israeli related post for that reason, i was burned by israeli mods/trolls back oct 23. and subsequently i reported pics that were discussing israeli/gaza in a propagandish manner.
I posted the below about Netanyahu and didn’t get banned on 2 different Lemmy subs, to my surprise:
i meant on reddit.
I know, I’m contrasting the experience bc there’s no way 99% of Reddit mods would allow the comment I made
im not surprised, i was temp ban for reporting someone like your commentor, and i was banned for it. basically the guy was making incorrect, misinformed comments, insta ban, because “we saw you reporting too much, so report abuse” temp ban, later i found out people were getting perma ban after a temp ban, so i just deleted my account. now i tried to appeal on 2 different ones banned at the same time, all denied.
The CEO is just as horrible, a friend of Musk and a white suprematist.
See I don’t understand why reddit allows this, responding to questions about a ban by permanently banning them! The mod (and admin?) abuse seems to be getting worse. I was banned from a sub for saying it to turned to garbage in a different sub.
The cross-sub silencing is crazy too. I got banned from a bunch of tesla subs for participating in r/cyberstuck. On that one, I did message the mods and told them to go fuck themselves for stifling free speech. Someone actually replied back and said, “Freedom of speech, doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.”, which is an infuriating misuse of that expression in this context. Then I got a 3 day ban.
its crossbanning, its the wierdest policy to pre-emptively ban someone for not even participating in your sub. just because you went to a sub that the mods dont like.
I call BS. Reddit didn’t issue a permanent ban for Trump criticism. This is probably a mod action and you are confused.
Here are the messages I received from u/reddit:
Reddit is a vast network of communities that are created, run, and populated by people like you. In order to keep communities welcoming, safe, and great places to be, everyone who uses the platform operates by a shared set of rules.
First message: Banned 7-days for hate
We flagged the following as a potential policy violation:
Content shared from KarlHungus311 on 03/25/2025 UTC After reviewing, we found that you broke Rule 1 because you promoted identity-based hate or attacks. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. We don’t tolerate promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability, and any communities or people that encourage or incite violence or hate towards marginalized or vulnerable groups will be banned.
As a result, we’re issuing a temporary 7-day ban on your KarlHungus311 account, removing the violating content, and asking you not to break this rule again.
Reddit and its communities are only what we make of them together, and we want you to continue enjoying Reddit while helping your fellow redditors and communities stay safe. We suggest reading and getting acquainted with the Reddit Rules. A better understanding of these rules will help you avoid further actions from our admin team. If you do continue to break Reddit’s rules through this or any other Reddit account, you may face additional actions such as a permanent ban from the platform.
If you feel like you didn’t break the rules, you can file an appeal any time within the next six months and we’ll take a second look.
If you live in the European Union, you can also contact a settlement body to dispute the decision. You may also have the right to have this decision reviewed by a competent court under the applicable laws of your country.
– Reddit Admin Team
Note: This content was flagged by Reddit’s automated systems. This decision was made without the assistance of automation.
Second Message (a few hours later): Your account has been permanently banned for breaking the rules.
This account has been permanently banned due to multiple, repeated violations of Reddit’s Content Policy on your other account(s). For more information about what rules you broke and how to appeal, check your account inboxes.
None of this shows what you were actually posting to earn this. You didn’t get a ban for calling Trump a cunt.
You were either ban evading and got caught after being flagged or you made a threat.
You are wrong. I did none of that. I submitted the appeal, I deleted the app from my phone, and did nothing on reddit. It was followed hours later by the permanent ban.
Nah, something is missing. I shit talk on Reddit all the time about Elon and Trump. It’s all over the place, it’s plain to see.
What’s missing, seems to be your understanding as to how much reddit has changed over the past year or so. Are you not seeing the other comments with similar experiences to mine? I highly encourage you to continue shit talking those two twats, but don’t be surprised when this happens to you as well. All it really takes is drawing the attention one pro-trump mod. Among other things, I made this alternate time cover and posted that in various places. Perhaps it was my overall post history that did me in. There was no explanation beyond what I already posted regarding the permanent ban.
Yeah I moved here for a ban too. Mine was political. I was banned for telling a mod that I will spank them and, essentially, that they will like it
I was banned for saying I should have a legal right to punch Nazis, which I don’t think was “permanent ban” territory.
This to me says that Reddit is Pro Nazi
I was issued a permanent ban that I successfully appealed when all I said was always punch Nazis
I appealed but it was pretty much instantly declined, and you know, fuck em
Yep. That was my first ban. My last pan was saying T n E should face the gallows. I said fuck it and came here.
Funny. I commented on a picture of Indiana jones punching a Nazi which said “there’s never a wrong time to punch a Nazi” and boom! Encouraging violence/ban. 😂
That place is a fucking gong show.
One of my favorite aspects of the new Indiana Jones game is just running around one-punching nazis. It really never gets old.
I cant even tell you what I got banned for because they banned me without saying why. I dont even know the last thing I was talking about was finding anime in the style of berserk.
They probably banned you for something that happened at least 24 hours before the ban hit because they’re just slow. My account was banned a week after I had replied to a racist troll trying to figure out if they were being racist so that I could ban them on my subreddit, and my comment was flagged as racist. I had already banned the user and hidden the thread, but that wasn’t good enough for Reddit and I needed to go.
I’m not banned, I deleted everything on there like 3 years ago.
I got banned in 2019 for hate speech against cops.
They’re most vulnerable and marginalized community. How dare you refuse to kiss their boots.
I was on reddit since around 2010. Had probably 500k karma in total? I was around before the apps. Still in the air of early internet vibes. It was a great place to find your community and chat.
I got my first ever temp ban a month ago for saying Luigi started a movement that our world needs. For billionaires need to be afraid of every day people.
Got a ban on r/news. Then shortly after a full ban.
I’ve been banned from plenty of right wing subs and it’s never been an issue. But one comment into their top corporate subreddit did it. So I left. Fuck em. There is no free speech there and to be honest. The quality of comments and community has dropped so heavily since 2016 that it doesn’t feel like a loss to me. Reddit community used to have standards and free speech for anyone. Now it’s no different from Facebook. Shitty joke comments on serious topics. Bots everywhere. It’s just a black hole now.
Reddit died the day they fired Victoria for… checks notes, doing her job effectively. That’s when I knew that reddit was fucking doomed. Everything since then has just been nails in the coffin.
news is one of those subs to avoid, they ban very easily much like r/politics does. they misconstrued my statement on several occasion and banned it outright.
Couldn’t agree more with your assent. On one of my alts. I said we should collectively throw dog shit at Reddit HQ and they banned me. lol. It was a joke playing on the farmers that drive manure spreaders into the villages to fuck with council.
I had a 12 year account, with over 900K karma. I was permabanned in Fenruary for repeating a comment I’d made nunerous times before the Inauguration without a word.
I came to Lemmy, and found lots of other 10+ year accounts that were banned as well. It seems February was a bloodbath, as they ejected lots of veteran accounts. We’ll probably never know how many, but probably in the thousands. We were the people that built Reddit over the last decade, with high volumes of posts, and they never had reasons to ban us. Then suddenly, in February, ALL of us became such egregious violators that we all had to be permabanned?
Whatever, Reddit was becoming increasingly frustrating. Every post was filled with puns, bots, Russian Propaganda Farmers, conservative trolls, and other such nonsense. Without all the active veteran posters, it’s only gotten far worse.
Yep, I agree. Total shitshow now. I don’t even peek in much.
i had a 11year account that started on pokemon console, and i dint even know it was banned til i was sent an email, then i recieved 5+emails, turns out that one temp ban in feb12-13 triggered like 5 accounts to be sitewide banned instantly, i then fled to another forum(not lemmy) and they reported the same 5-10+years accts isntantly banned. although the forum is geared towards evading for income. then we also found out they were planning to sell REDDIT which make sense, since you need to sanatize the site and also not get on trumps and musk crosshair, they are definitely preparing for reddit to become X/facebook hybrid.
even new users are getting canned too, shadowban for no reason? also using vpn or a cheap proxy is also enough for a ban.,
feb-march was a big massacre, specifically march started the whole anti-luigi bannings.
I got banned for saying Andrew Tate fans are fucking retarded.
They hated him because he spoke the truth.
Genuinely an insult to actual mentally disabled people comparing them to tate groupies.
I gotta ask, whats the comment exactly my brœther?
Here’s the original offending comment that was later restored:
Fuck Radcliffe and all the rest of the un-American fascist bootlickers.
“You can characterize it how you want” Go fuck Musk’s face. Fucking clown.
I received a warning and my comment got deleted by Reddit. And after the news about potentially getting banned for upvoting specific content, I decided enough was enough, I deleted my account which I’ve had for 12 years.
agreed, its a matter of time anyways people are going to get banned fot he most preposterous thing. getting permaban from the site after a temp ban, a shadowban out of nowhere that doesnt make sense. usually shadowbanned were reserved for repeat ban site wide-evaders, but its banning anyone for the slightest incident.
I received a warning 30 days ago that I didn’t notice and saw a permanent ban on my account today. Kind of a relief actually to have an excuse to get out of that hellhole.
