Hey all. I'm here to tell you about my experience getting "shadow-banned" on my 8-year-old Reddit account. Short alike others: https://lemmy.today/post/49087735, https://lemmy.today/post/48784920, https://lemmy.today/post/47876190, https://lemmy.today/post/47779751
Almost smart
I basically stopped using Reddit 3 year ago around the whole "Reddit's killing Thirdparty APPS" but, got sucked back in to a niche health/lookmaxing style Sub that I helped Mod for 10 months.
The day of
About a week ago I'm making posts, commenting, Moding, etc, and interactions stop working strangely lets of red error popups, and the "Important Information About Your Reddit Account" notification, saying "after detecting some technical irregularities on your USER_NAME account, we took the extra precaution of locking your account. To unlock your account, reset your password now."
Figuring it out
So, I reset it via my email and log back in. Worried, but it seem top be working.... then a few hours later the same red banner errors when I try to interact with users. So, I view my account on a logged out browser and it says "account suspended"
What to-do?
After filling out both https://www.reddit.com/appeal & https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360000600232 I waited for an email, Reddit notification..... And got nothing about it.
Now, the current non-signed in status is "This account has been banned" & all posts/comments are removed (Mods can still see them as from u/deleted & manually approve them)
When signed in:
- No banner on my account or reason for being banned.
- All public interactions fail with a Red popup error, and my entire history of posts and comments says "Sorry, this post was removed by Reddit’s filters." or "Removed by Reddit"
Why?
What did I do wrong? Only reddit knows that! We can speculate, but, there is no point really. Reddit's TOS allows them to!
How I feel about it
I feel disrespected, gaslit, lied to, and discriminated against. Sad, angry, depressed, etc... :( You all know the stages of grief.
Reddit pretending there's a technical issue to me, but banning me without even saying it, and removing all my past posts & comments is very disheartening. From my personal experience, Reddit has proven to be largely a waste of time, and very much uninvestable.
Moving forward
Well, I'm not gonna make another Reddit account just for the same thing to happen, that would be me participating in (as I see it) a toxic relationship. I still get other random Reddit notifications (modmail, streak messages, etc) I can't do anything with. It's like Reddit is teasing me now. This guy has a good point https://lemmy.today/post/47176601/22123471
A little help?
Anyway, I know there is a lot of hate for conservative/Christian views around here, so any TIPS on where to find a 'safe space' to be me & express my self, and how to limit/block toxicity would be appreciated.
Maybe this is a sign from God, that my time is better offline.
It feels like becoming schizophrenic, right? I had to use alts to verify my comments were invisible, created a private sub to invite only myself and made empty/ipsumlorum posts that still got artificial votes and views.
No there's groups way more marginalized than Conservative/Christian that get targeted (usually by accident because the automod doesn't know or can't tell what's an actual bad actor). But I won't deny that it's a worldview that will just draw more negative attention sometimes without provocation.
You can be conservative/Christian here and not get shit on, it's just easier to stay under the radar if you make a habit of trying not to be both in the exact same sentence. There are no automods. Just people that already have a maga uncle IRL and came here specifically just to avoid interacting with him. So let that info shape how you move.
Haha, I'm trying to not think about it and move on. I don't want more of the questioning my self stress from that experience!
Some people seem to really hate those two word already :| looks like I should be praying for them. Hate is a terrible thing in someone's life.
It's funny to think of them as 'sleeper agents', acting normal until the trigger words "Conservative/Christian" are spoken :)
The other commenter had some good advice in that right, too? Christianity was at its idealistic strongest at a time when it was an internal experience and a external revolution. If your journey with it is something you take seriously then it's hopefully going to take you somewhere better than fighting with people on the internet. Or giving them time and opportunity to fight with you.
However you decide to spend your time or how you move among people, I hope you find your bliss.
Thank you. Your right about me enabling them, I need to reflect on that! It also seems I need to set some boundaries & not feed the hateful trolls with my limited time.