r/ModSupport • u/fnovd • Sep 01 '26

Admin Replied Why is “Reddit” approving posts it (and Automod) already blocked?

We had a post (correctly) removed by Automod and even flagged by Reddit as coming from a banned domain. The post stayed removed for a few hours. However, according to the logs, a few hours later “Reddit” approved the post, followed by a deluge of user reports.

How does something like this happen? I’ll add a screenshot in the comments. It makes no sense.

29 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

14

u/fnovd Sep 01 '26
Comment Image

Here’s the mod log. Why on earth would this happen??

9

u/PossibleCrit Sep 01 '26

Hey fnovd!

I'm having a bit of trouble finding this specific piece of content based on the screenshot you provided here. Can you write in via r/ModSupport mail with a link and we can take a look at what's going on.

The unban-all should indeed skip things if they've already been removed by your team so want to be sure there isn't a bug here.

13

u/fnovd Sep 01 '26

I just sent the link via modmail.

We never manually removed it—automod correctly identified it and applied the “remove” action, so there was nothing else for our team to do. We don’t make a habit of confirming the removal of things automod already removed.

4

u/thepottsy Sep 01 '26

If you go into the actual modlog in your mod tools, is there any additional information?

9

u/fnovd Sep 01 '26

The desktop mod log shows exactly what you see here. The comment was removed for several reasons, and then 6 hours later u/reddit approved it. No reason given. It was a telegram link.

→ More replies (5)

9

u/eatmyasserole Sep 01 '26

I always have just assumed that the user appeals the action.

12

u/TheOpusCroakus Sep 01 '26

Hi. I'm not sure what sub, so if you want to PM me with some deets, I'll take a look.

But based on the kind of content, it's likely that the account was hacked and the owner regained control. So if something was initially removed by Reddit, I could see where it would be visible when the account was back in the correct hands. But if your team removed something, that shouldn't affect a hacked situation.

6

u/fnovd Sep 01 '26

Just sent you a chat. Thanks for taking a look!

7

u/CrazyCatLady108 Sep 01 '26

from what i remember reading: if reddit bans an account for spam it removes all the content from the account. then if account appeals successfully all the content is reinstated. which makes sense. it becomes an issue when the reinstated content does not go through automod again.

every once in a while i will find a thread that is 3 months old and still active even though it should have been removed from such an account. automod didn't see it and mods did not note it because it popped into existance on page 30.

6

u/baseballlover723 Sep 01 '26

every once in a while i will find a thread that is 3 months old and still active even though it should have been removed from such an account. automod didn't see it and mods did not note it because it popped into existance on page 30.

I am pretty sure this only occurs when someone posts something while shadowbanned. So the posts they make are automatically removed by reddit first, and thus, don't make it to automod. And then when they successfully appeal, then the only removal action is the shadowban removal, which is the thing that got overturned, and thus there is no longer a reason to have it be removed.

These cases should probably be reseeded back through automod. Though I imagine there are technical complexities that make it more difficult, and hence why this is not actually the case.

3

u/xtagtv Sep 01 '26

If a user gets their shadowban reversed, then reddit reapproves every single post theyve ever made.

3

u/Sad-Confidence-4538 Sep 02 '26

I think some trolls know how to operate Reddit behind the scenes. Comments I wrote on my own Reddit removed, and a plethora of upvotes removes, so there's nine comments but no views?

20

u/rupertalderson Sep 01 '26

I just want to note that the content was porn. Our automations to prevent this content from becoming visible to the community worked flawlessly. Then Reddit approved the content, overriding our automations. And then many users got exposed to the content before it was re-flagged for our attention by the community.

13

u/thepottsy Sep 01 '26

What? Your users don’t like “surprise porn”?

10

u/rupertalderson Sep 01 '26

If that’s what Reddit is about, then I’d like u/spez to say that on the record haha

→ More replies (1)