I lurked Reddit for a long time before creating an account which is now over 6 years old. I was a ‘Top Contributor’ and in the rewards program. 89k karma, never promoted violence or targeted any group, but I got a 7-day ban which was followed up hours later with a permanent ban. This is because of a comment criticizing Senator Radcliffe, trump, and Musk. The comment included profanity, (I called them hypocrites and cunts), but it wasn’t directed at any user or marginalized group. Just harsh political commentary.

Reddit initially issued a 7-day ban, which I appealed. That appeal was approved, the comment was restored, and they admitted it didn’t violate the rules. But the permanent ban still stands, and my follow-up appeals on that have been ignored. No explanation. No transparency. Just gone.

It’s made me realize how fragile “free speech” is on platforms like Reddit. You can insult regular users and get away with it, say horrendously racist, misogynistic, and homophobic things, but speak too plainly about powerful people and suddenly you’re promoting “hate.”

I combed through the Reddit rules, and nothing I have ever commented or posted violates them.

That’s the reason I’m here on Lemmy now. I’m trying to read more, scroll less, and engage with platforms that aren’t actively censoring political dissent. Who else is in the same boat? Is there anything that can be done to hold Reddit accountable or make people aware of they way they are censoring speech? This is my first Lemmy post. I marked it NSFW because of the profanity.

  • Surp@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 hours ago

    I cant even tell you what I got banned for because they banned me without saying why. I dont even know the last thing I was talking about was finding anime in the style of berserk.

  • AidsKitty@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 hours ago

    I got banned for saying a woman was a monster. Yes free speech really must be protected by all sides, we can too easily lose it.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.eeEnglish
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    4 hours ago

    I got permabanned for criticizing Israel. The final comment that got me permabanned was literally ‘No, just the problems they deserve blame for’ to a zionist who accused all Lebanese of blaming all their problems on Israel.

  • Glaedr304@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    My leaving was originally from the api cost changes, I had payed for a 3rd party reader years ago and all of a sudden my lifetime of no ads was gone and I had to pay. This change was admittedly after reddit decided to follow twitters api cost changes. I am supprised at how close Elon and spez seem to be, given that I don’t know of any photos of the two of them, they they probably only know each other as CEO’s.

  • BluewaterRed@lemm.ee
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    7 hours ago

    Holy crap that is EXACTLY what happened to me this week. I wasn’t top contributor or anything so grand but I got a 7 ban after criticizing imperialism which after making an appeal that was rejected. I literally did nothing afterwards but woke up to a perma ban that was issued several hours after with no indication of why.

  • Frjttr@lemm.ee
    0·
    10 hours ago

    Same loool Let’s make Lemmy grow and leave any centralised social network.

  • Geetnerd@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 hours ago

    Same, happened to me hours ago, with no message stating why, or no recourse.

    Elon whined to Spez to do something about Redditors being mean to him.

    I guess it worked. Fuck both of them.

  • Iceman@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 hours ago

    There is these blanket responses that goes like this: “Free speech is only that the government can’t punish you” and “It’s a private company it can moderate how it wants”. I take a lot of issue issue with it. In our times the wast majority of speech takes place on online on privately owned plattforms. I don’t se what the point is in freely submitting to a world where only corporate approved speech is allowed.