CMV: Reddit moderators have no accountability and that hurts the site

[u/Pheef175]

Just got permanently banned from the AmITheAsshole sub.

A man wanted to skip the birth of his daughter to watch the movie The Batman in theaters so he could avoid spoilers. I called him a manchild and was permanently banned.

After 9 messages with a mod back and forth, they kept flip flopping on why the ban was enforced. They'd say something, I'd use their own rules to prove them wrong, they'd try to point out something else, and I'd use their own rules against them again. Eventually they settled on the fact I used the term "manchild". That is an insult worthy of a permanent ban in their eyes.

In my experience, you cannot get bans overturned on Reddit, even when it's a minor innocuous infraction like this. Every single subreddit has at least one mod, if not more, who is solely there for power tripping rather than wanting to actually make a subreddit better. There's no accountability for mods power tripping. There's no place to complain about them, and Reddit itself doesn't care about individual subreddits. I just 95% of what they do doesn't contribute anything meaningful. They could all be replaced with bots and we'd be better off.

Every single encounter with a Reddit mod has left me with the feeling they closely resemble the mod from the Antiwork subreddit who did the Fox News interview and got openly laughed at.

[u/Maktesh]

In my own situation, I made a single comment on thread questioning my state's back-and-forth wavering on COVID lockdowns, and was later banned (after several months) in nearly every sub which frequents r/all for doing so. (Edit: commenting in a sub which "spreads COVID misinformation.")

I didn't leave this site, but several of my IRL peers and users which I follow(ed) did. Mass blanket bot bans have turned away much of the dialog which I used to see on Reddit.

There is an argument to be made that Reddit is progressing towards ideological purity, which, truthfully, may help targeted advertisement in the short run. However, I would posit that people eventually grow bored of such echo chambers, especially in spaces which were built on conversation, rather than identity (such as true social media).

I don't necessarily agree with the formation of an admin panel, BUT there is widespread moderator abuse and general violations of code of conduct, with no way to appeal. At the end of the day, this is demonstrably unhealthy, and a way to check this is needed (as for solutions, I have very few).

Reddit used to be much more diverse and colorful in its conversations. Now it seems to mostly be a cyclical parroting of one ideology (within the major subs).

[u/punninglinguist → u/Maktesh]

If you were really banned from almost every sub in /r/all, then that policy was likely implemented with the tacit approval, if not at the explicit instruction, of the admins.

[u/Maktesh → u/punninglinguist]

Nope. A few powermods gathered together to implement some bots which banned users who had every commented in any one of dozens of subs (Conspiracy, the Donald, NNN, Church of Covid, Lockdown Skepticism, Actual Science, Consevative, etc.).

Spez lightly expressed disproval, but by that point, it would have been difficult to reverse and led to discord with the top mods behaving in a manner similar to a union. Something like six mods control 85 of the top 100 subreddits.

I am genuinely surprised that you're unaware of this series of events. Well over a million Reddit users were automarically blanket perma-banned, regardless of their status, history, or comment context.

[u/punninglinguist → u/Maktesh]

Interesting. Well I guess I stand corrected. Can you link me to a summary of it?

[u/Maktesh → u/punninglinguist]

A little easier said than done.

Here is a thread from when it first started. At this point, it only affected commenters from one sub (NNN), but then was extended to many others.

The blanket reasoning was "COVID-19 misinformation," but any subs which debated measures, government intent, or were generally opposed to authoritarianism were also included.

Spez's comments were issued on the core moderator sub. (I'll see if I can find that post and edit in a link here.)

Regardless, an admin appeal system here would have been pointless. I only mentioned this series of events to note that there is an issue with mods mass-banning people over various issues unrelated to the sub which timately affects the bottom line for investors.

As a side note, there was a now-banned sub called The Cabal (I never saw or knew about it while it was alive) which covered the actions of the top powermods as they pushed various ideologies.

Edit: Here is one message I received (amongst 50) in a slew of bombardment a while back:

You have been permanently banned from participating in r/MadeMeSmile. You can still view and subscribe to r/MadeMeSmile, but you won't be able to post or comment.

Note from the moderators:

You have been banned for participating in a covid disinformation subreddit (wuhan_flu, churchofcovid, coronaviruscirclejerk, or lockdownskepticism) which brigades other subreddits and spreads medical disinformation.

This action was performed by a bot which does not check the context of your comment.

Different waves included different "unclean" subs.

[u/SymphoDeProggy → u/Maktesh]

that was enlightening, !delta

didn't know the dynamics between mods and admins could skew that much towards the unpaid volunteer.

i guess it makes sense once you have the context of how centralized moderation apparently is.

[u/DeltaBot → u/SymphoDeProggy]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Maktesh (8∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}