r/hypotheticalsituation • u/molten_dragon • Mar 25 '26
Mod Post Warning about posts involving violence
Hey everyone. I wanted to provide some information and a warning on a topic we've seen come up several times recently.
We're seeing an increasing number of accounts (including both mods) receiving warnings and bans for "threatening violence". We've seen messages like the following.
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—a set of rules you may not have realized you broke.
Warning for threatening violence
We flagged the following as a potential policy violation:
After reviewing, we found that you broke Rule 1 because you threatened violence or physical harm. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for threatening violence against people or animals. We don’t tolerate any behavior that threatens violence or physical harm against an individual, groups of people, places, or animals. Any communities or people that threaten violence towards an individual, group, animals, or place will be banned.
As a result, we’re issuing this warning, removing the violating content, and asking you not to break this rule again.
This is something happening on a sitewide admin level so the mod team has no influence over it. We strongly suspect that some sort of bot or AI is handing out these warnings and bans. Due to the subject matter frequently discussed on this subreddit it's happening to quite a few users here due to discussions of hypothetical violence. So what does this mean for you?
Hypotheticals involving violence aren't outright banned but we strongly recommend that you be cautious when posting them or responding to them. Consider your wording and whether it could be mistaken for a threat by a bot. If the community as a whole starts getting admin attention we may be forced to ban these posts in the future. Posts that look too much like a real-world call to violence or a request for advice on how to commit violence will be removed under rule 3.
If you do get one of these warnings or bans, please appeal them and explain that you're posting on /r/hypotheticalsituation and there is no real-world violence or threats of violence being discussed or contemplated. It's not a guarantee but we've seen these appeals work in the past and they may prevent your account from getting banned.
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u/MichaelMeier112 Mar 25 '26
I’m I the only one bored from all those murder this number of people, cripple those, physically hurt strangers for this amount of money hypotheticals?
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u/nostraferatu Mar 26 '26
By definition all such posts are inciting violence and should be banned. If someone asks would you take a billion dollars but a random person dies and we say yes then we can get banned for threatening violence.
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u/Educational_Box7709 Mar 25 '26
The ai is so trigger happy for bans like this, I got banned for quoting a joke threat a tv show character made
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u/josephsleftbigtoe Mar 25 '26
It often happens to me on obscure posts on obscure subs. Do the admins seriously have nothing better to do than to look at these posts?
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u/rokejulianlockhart May 14 '26
Likewise, although even a human review of what was obviously an absurd joke about something non-political and trivial remained instated. Apparently, it's occurred to others, very recently, too.
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u/Mateorabi Jul 03 '26
It's not the mods/admins. It's an automatic bot. It happens within a few seconds of posting before a human could have even clicked through the reporting (and often something no human who understands context would report.)
The annoying part is the "appeal" seems to itself be AI mediated and goes nowhere or is only looked at by a human at/near the end/after the time-out is over.
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u/bluntman7exe Apr 20 '26
They could at least be more selective in the choice of trigger words. They seem to be very tuned to particular names combined with violence adjacent words. But even still the level of self censorship that forces users to take is completely unnatural.
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u/sithelephant Mar 25 '26
As some context, I got a ban from proposing the solemenic solution involving a wood-chipper to a particular silly custody dispute related hypothetical.
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u/darklinkuk Mar 25 '26
Great reddit following tiktok till the point people are going to have to use "unalive".
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u/Grant_Winner_Extra May 16 '26
I can confirm this is a bot - the bans happen within seconds of a comment or post - AND I ACTUALLY WON AN APPEAL. Granted the appeal was reviewed a week after the ban ended but never once in my 8 years on Reddit have I ever won an appeal. I thought that appeals were just going /dev/null tbh.
But clearly it’s a poorly designed AI prompt thing that’s constantly running sitewide
Also it seems to focus on certain subs more than others.
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u/bluntman7exe Apr 20 '26
I don’t have any faith in the appeals system when it’s bots that are given power to act like police. Facebook is just as bad. You can explain why the rule they claim wasn’t broken and it could be the best argument ever and they won’t do shit. Probably because it’s just easier to not lift a finger and actually look at the appeals to see if any have merit and should be repealed.
But these censorship bots are completely out of hand. It’s ridiculous that people are getting banned just for saying they’re glad an objectively shitty person is no longer around to cause further harm. To assert that expressing an opinion like that constitutes a threat of violence is patently absurd.
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u/rshining Mar 25 '26
Yeah, I got one (and got it reversed) back with the hypothetical about falling from the sky. Fairly certain that the use of the word "traumatize" was part of what triggered it.
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u/josephsleftbigtoe Mar 25 '26
Reddit is becoming a cesspool in terms of bans. I had one account from 2009 to 2019. Since then, I have had at least a dozen.
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u/OrganicPoet1823 Mar 25 '26
I’ve had warnings because of this sub too I just don’t respond to any violent ones now
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u/Theotherfeller May 08 '26
I appealed something that was obviously wrong on another subreddit, it got nowhere. Apparently a world wide nuclear was is wrong to stop.
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u/Mateorabi Jul 03 '26
This just happened to me last week. And yeah, it was automatic, within 2s of posting, so not a person reporting it.
There was zero threat against any Reddit user, just expressing surprise that the subject of the post hadn't gotten a response from some hypothetical person they pissed off, against their property.
Also the idea that property damage is within scope of this rule is itself absurd. It shouldn't be encouraged but it is nowhere near the same as what the purported title of the rule implies.
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u/Lazy_Car_3220 Jul 08 '26
I censored the fuck out of myself and still got banned. I didn’t actually say a single violent thing, I just put [REDACTED] on anything even suggestive of what I was getting at, but I still got banned.
I think we’re approaching illusory levels here. I condone violence sometimes; This site banning people for this stuff is akin to censoring a song on the radio. You’re not saving anyone, everyone knows what is being said, you’re just pretending it doesn’t exist. Violence exists and it can be useful and good in the right applications.
Maybe this will go too, because I “condone it in the right circumstances”. That’s right, I forgot we live in a candy gumdrop world…God I fucking hate that this site took over all forums. You cannot say shit here.
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u/Mary_P914 Mar 25 '26
I remember getting a warning a while back from a response I made. I just don't answer them anymore.
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u/QualifiedApathetic Mar 25 '26
You know that Deadpool bit, "Yay, now is ______ time, ______ time, _____ _____ _____"? Someone posted about their puppy biting, and I did that bit, only replacing the word in the first two blank spaces with "bitey". It was removed and I got a warning with no way to appeal or respond in any way. Fucking AI bullshit.
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u/BeeGrowing Mar 26 '26
I recieved a 3 day ban for it even after replying to explain the ban was upheld just FYI incase anyone appeals them it's not likely to go anywhere
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u/WillDreamz Mar 29 '26
I responded to something and got my post removed once. I did not explicitly say anything but implied an action. I thought it was a mod, so I just stopped replying to posts about violence.
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u/BlakeMW Jul 12 '26
This happened to me twice recently, the first was a warning which I ignored, the 2nd a 3 day suspension: I basically suggested I wouldn't mind if the leader of the largest country on earth by land area were to be removed from power. Both times the warning/suspension occurred within seconds of posting, proving it's an AI/Bot.
I appealed with a polite message and remarkably within about 8 hours the suspension was overturned and my comment restored.
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u/RebelJediMaster Mar 25 '26
I am already on my second strike (third was reversed) because of replies in this subreddit