I go on one tiny community every day to learn of local news. Guess this is it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50164893

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/73204941

I keep an account so I can follow what local redditors are saying about local politics, but everytime I make the mistake of clicking through a headline on the front page I can't help but notice the "non-political" subs have are regurgitating transphobia (specifically r/sportsgossip & friends).

The only place I don't see a change in vibes are the CircleJerk subs like AmITheAngel and GirlDinnerDiariesCircleJerk which if I put my conspiracy hat on would suggest the vibes are being pushed by bots or AI(actually Indians).

Even on my local reddit anything pro-police/survailance will have a bunch positive of comments from accounts with names like unoriginal_words_1234 and all their comment history hidden.

Has reddit moved further right recently or is this just 1 particular culture war thing being pushed, it does seem pretty engineered (AFAIK there are 0 trans women in the WNBA)? Has anyone done a study on this? Especially the rightward skew of seemingly bot accounts.

I got shadow banned weeks ago mistakenly, it happened after I made 4 posts about a humidity issues on 4 different subs. I think that triggered an algorithm to think I am a bot or something.

So the only sub I could use is r/Shadowban so I thought let me help others and let them know about their account situation.

My last comment was suggesting summit/lemmy while waiting and then I got message from r/shadowban that I am permanently banned. F... not sure if I can curse.

Anyway, I think Summit is amazing after some settings it looks like reddit and even better

Just out of curiosity. Landed myself in a permanent ban that seems to be tied to my device so no more reddit ever I guess (now that they've walled off browsing behind accounts) but the circumstances of the ban were what seems to be a bug involving the ban evasion filter that I cant even submit a ticket about because all bug reports are in a subreddit :')

Is this just me? I had a ban from a subreddit, it appeared to have run down, went to post in the community and got two comments out before being flagged for "ban evasion" because turns out there were 2 days left and Im bad at counting I guess womp womp. But this led to being flagged for evading a ban on the account that had the ban which is weird.

Ive never had it happen before where a comment even registered in a banned community, there was no pinned message, genuinely seemed all clear. Is this a fluke? How did that even happen?

Reddit is blocking me with no way around it now.

Firefox on Linux.

This is not old Reddit.

Tried zapping with ublock and disabling ublock with no luck.

Tried to curl the page and that didn't work either.

cross-posted from: https://thebrainbin.org/m/[email protected]/t/1836044

Going by comments in the post, the required login is coming in waves, so not all people may notice immediately.

Still, as Reddit is strong-arming its way across, maybe worth signaling to people there that the fediverse may be used without an account, so long as there's even one instance that implements logged-out view as the protocol allows it?

I don't have access to my account any longer, possibly VPN ban, though I never tried to recover it so I can only guess why mine is lost, else I'd post myself.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/33271259

When you post on reddit, instagram etc. you're giving the company your valuable data. (And it often is valuable, you put your thoughts into it and all that). Consider if you take 15 minutes to create value content, you'd get paid $5 or sth if you were doing it commercially. Now all that value is donated to big tech companies. (that's the only reason why they have value at all.)

So what's the problem with that? The problem is that reddit and others can instantaneously put your years-long effort behind a paywall. I'm not joking. Look at these:

when i want to see content on reddit (for research) or instagram (for local community) they don't allow me to see the data that users have contributed. Reddit claims that it blocks VPNs for "security reasons", meanwhile i'm using VPNs in browser's incognito mode to not be tracked. Instagram wants you to sign in sothat they amass more users and can take leverage of the network effect even more.

I can understand restricting who can post to limit bot activity, but reading must always be possible. After all, it's our data. That's exactly what happens when you give your data to big companies to "communicate with other people": your data becomes a source of income for them, at our expense.

Expect this trend to continue, not only on Reddit, but throughout the internet. Not a hidden ban list, but the same dynamic in play.

From the mods in the post above:

In early May, we noticed some changes to our sub. Overnight, weekly visits to our sub went from 8M to 2M. The ability to award posts and comments was disabled. Our visibility in community topics and categories like ‘Celebrities’ and ‘News’ vanished. We have been a community on Reddit for years with no issues so we figured it was a glitch and the issue would clear up on its own. It didn’t.

On May 13th, a member of our mod team reached out to Reddit admin to inquire how we fix the issue. They responded on May 15th saying, “It looks like in this case your community's content might be considered sensitive, thus the topic tab may not be visible.”

We continued to follow up.

On May 23rd, we finally received a response saying, “Subreddit rankings, awards, and achievements are tied to the types of content featured in a community. If the posts and comments in a community are considered sensitive, these features may be disabled. In this case these cannot be enabled.”

Again, we followed up to ask what exactly it was that made them consider our content to be ‘sensitive content’. Our posts are no different than other celebrity or even news subs. It quickly became clear to us we were being given the runaround. Admin wouldn’t even tell us for sure our community’s content was “sensitive”, just that it might be, nor would admin inform us why our sub’s content was potentially being considered sensitive. We asked if it was due to our celebrity, pro-Palestine, and/or anti-Trump content. We didn’t receive a response even after multiple follow ups.

On May 27th, a different mod reached out to admin asking for clarity on why it appeared our sub’s content was labeled "sensitive" and how we fix the issue.

An automated bot responded to us informing us that, “A subreddit may be designated as 'sensitive content' and face reduced visibility or loss of features if it is found to be in violation of Reddit's sitewide rules. This can include repeated violations or the presence of content that is not suitable for a general audience. In such cases, Reddit may apply restrictions such as adding NSFW tags, quarantining the community, or other enforcement actions to limit exposure and protect users. When enforcement action is taken against a subreddit, moderators are notified of the reason for the action. This notification includes instructions on how to appeal the decision. Moderators can submit an appeal within six months of receiving the notification. Appeals are reviewed in a timely and non-discriminatory manner, and if it is determined that the initial assessment was incorrect, the enforcement action may be reversed. To resolve the designation, moderators should carefully review the notification, follow the provided appeal instructions, and ensure that the community complies with Reddit's rules moving forward. This process is designed to be transparent and to encourage positive contributions to the platform.”

This confused our team as we were never notified of any enforcement action against our subreddit nor were we given any opportunity to appeal. So again we followed-up. Multiple times. We continued to get the runaround. When we asked about it admin would send us vague responses and questions back like they had no clue what we could possibly be referring to.

The last communication with admin we had was on June 3rd. We were told, “We have already shared all the information we can provide at this time. There is no notice of enforcement because no enforcement action has been taken. Your subreddit content may be considered sensitive, which can result in the subreddit topic not being visible and could affect how easily people come across the community. However, users can still find the community, join it, and interact with its content. This is part of the platform's normal ecosystem behavior. If there is a significant change in the nature of the posts or comments within the community in the future, you are welcome to reach out to us. We can then review the subreddit again and assess whether the current topic classification remains accurate. For now, this is all the information we can share. We hope this helps!”

This confused our team even more and again we followed up. How are we supposed to know if there is a change in the nature of our posts if we are not being told by Reddit why they “might” be sensitive in the first place? We received no response after multiple follow-ups.

After weeks of questions with vague responses we still have not been told by Reddit why our content MAY be considered sensitive nor have we been informed why our content is considered so sensitive it has to be quarantined. Just that it’s how Reddit’s “normal ecosystem behavior” works. A platform where racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and sexism run rampant. Our mod team has faced harassment including slurs, death threats, rape threats and threats of doxxing for allowing pro-Palestine posts, anti-Trump posts, pro-Amber Heard posts as well as posts calling out racism, transphobia and other forms bigotry. But it seems that’s just part of Reddit’s normal ecosystem.

The truth is we know why our content “might” have been designated “sensitive”. Our mod team is made up exclusively of BIPOC and/or members of the LGBTQIA+ community, so we are not unfamiliar with these patterns. Marginalized people having a voice or any sort of platform is the issue. Speaking out against fascism and up for those in marginalized communities is the issue. Calling out Trump and Israel is the issue.

We do not plan on making any changes to the kind of content we allow and we will continue to try to create a safe space for our members. In the meantime, finding our content might be more difficult, but now you know why.

In early May, we noticed some changes to our sub. Overnight, weekly visits to our sub went from 8M to 2M. The ability to award posts and comments was disabled. Our visibility in community topics and categories like ‘Celebrities’ and ‘News’ vanished. We have been a community on Reddit for years with no issues so we figured it was a glitch and the issue would clear up on its own. It didn’t.

On May 13th, a member of our mod team reached out to Reddit admin to inquire how we fix the issue. They responded on May 15th saying, “It looks like in this case your community's content might be considered sensitive, thus the topic tab may not be visible.”

We continued to follow up.

On May 23rd, we finally received a response saying, “Subreddit rankings, awards, and achievements are tied to the types of content featured in a community. If the posts and comments in a community are considered sensitive, these features may be disabled. In this case these cannot be enabled.”

Again, we followed up to ask what exactly it was that made them consider our content to be ‘sensitive content’. Our posts are no different than other celebrity or even news subs. It quickly became clear to us we were being given the runaround. Admin wouldn’t even tell us for sure our community’s content was “sensitive”, just that it might be, nor would admin inform us why our sub’s content was potentially being considered sensitive. We asked if it was due to our celebrity, pro-Palestine, and/or anti-Trump content. We didn’t receive a response even after multiple follow ups.

On May 27th, a different mod reached out to admin asking for clarity on why it appeared our sub’s content was labeled "sensitive" and how we fix the issue.

An automated bot responded to us informing us that, “A subreddit may be designated as 'sensitive content' and face reduced visibility or loss of features if it is found to be in violation of Reddit's sitewide rules. This can include repeated violations or the presence of content that is not suitable for a general audience. In such cases, Reddit may apply restrictions such as adding NSFW tags, quarantining the community, or other enforcement actions to limit exposure and protect users. When enforcement action is taken against a subreddit, moderators are notified of the reason for the action. This notification includes instructions on how to appeal the decision. Moderators can submit an appeal within six months of receiving the notification. Appeals are reviewed in a timely and non-discriminatory manner, and if it is determined that the initial assessment was incorrect, the enforcement action may be reversed. To resolve the designation, moderators should carefully review the notification, follow the provided appeal instructions, and ensure that the community complies with Reddit's rules moving forward. This process is designed to be transparent and to encourage positive contributions to the platform.”

This confused our team as we were never notified of any enforcement action against our subreddit nor were we given any opportunity to appeal. So again we followed-up. Multiple times. We continued to get the runaround. When we asked about it admin would send us vague responses and questions back like they had no clue what we could possibly be referring to.

The last communication with admin we had was on June 3rd. We were told, “We have already shared all the information we can provide at this time. There is no notice of enforcement because no enforcement action has been taken. Your subreddit content may be considered sensitive, which can result in the subreddit topic not being visible and could affect how easily people come across the community. However, users can still find the community, join it, and interact with its content. This is part of the platform's normal ecosystem behavior. If there is a significant change in the nature of the posts or comments within the community in the future, you are welcome to reach out to us. We can then review the subreddit again and assess whether the current topic classification remains accurate. For now, this is all the information we can share. We hope this helps!”

This confused our team even more and again we followed up. How are we supposed to know if there is a change in the nature of our posts if we are not being told by Reddit why they “might” be sensitive in the first place? We received no response after multiple follow-ups.

After weeks of questions with vague responses we still have not been told by Reddit why our content MAY be considered sensitive nor have we been informed why our content is considered so sensitive it has to be quarantined. Just that it’s how Reddit’s “normal ecosystem behavior” works. A platform where racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and sexism run rampant. Our mod team has faced harassment including slurs, death threats, rape threats and threats of doxxing for allowing pro-Palestine posts, anti-Trump posts, pro-Amber Heard posts as well as posts calling out racism, transphobia and other forms bigotry. But it seems that’s just part of Reddit’s normal ecosystem.

The truth is we know why our content “might” have been designated “sensitive”. Our mod team is made up exclusively of BIPOC and/or members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Marginalized people having a voice or any sort of platform is the issue. Speaking out against fascism and up for those in marginalized communities is the issue. Calling out Trump and Israel is the issue.

We do not plan on making any changes to the kind of content we allow and we will continue to try to create a safe space for our members. In the meantime, finding our content might be more difficult, but now you know why.

No option to exit or skip.

Only 3 days, but eh. I don't care. I only go on there to read comments about certain topics that pique my interest (games I'm currently playing, other current news stories) and very seldom comment, unless it really gets under my skin.

I left a comment on a post about the recent ICE killings, saying that anyone and everyone should be "armed to the fucking teeth when going to their next ICE protest, because it's much harder to oppress someone when they're ready and willing to put the other person down like the rabid dog they are."

And I'd fucking say it again.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/57083859