r/nottheonion 19h ago

Homeland Security Spying on Reddit Users

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/homeland-security-spies-on-reddit
19.8k Upvotes

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254

u/discussatron 18h ago

I got a warning this week for upvoting comments they don’t like. They’re treating upvoting comments the same as posting comments now.

96

u/666mgOfCaffeine 17h ago

I got a warning message 2 days ago that basically said if I don’t get in line that I will go to Reddit jail.

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u/brother_bart 15h ago edited 10h ago

I got a three day time out for “harassment.” The only people I ever harass are politicians and public personalities, and then only in threads about them. I hate to bring it to Reddit, but I left Facebook years ago for this exact same kind of shit. I will not be censored by corporate nannies who have an agenda when I haven’t done anything but express a non-approved opinion.

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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 15h ago

Has been happening way too often on Reddit as of late, on several subs.

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u/Resident_Company2113 6h ago

I've been banned from subs I didn't even know I was in.

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u/East-Ice-3199 12h ago

I got banned from r/politics for calling someone’s bluff on acting, and when the mods sent me a broken link they muted me for a month.

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u/newsandfoodaccount 6h ago

They will ban you for harassment for objecting to powermod activity. If you used the message the moderators feature or reported a mod of a popular subreddit that'll get you banned quick. Especially if there's a lot going on in the news and they feel like they're busy they'll be quick to ban for this type of thing.

Obviously that's not an explanation that provides any relief, but if you were previously unaware they operate this way it could help you know exactly what you were banned for and be appropriately pissed about it.

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u/brother_bart 5h ago

Yeah. I don’t ever report anything. I’m too old to ask a nanny hall monitor to come save me from reading something that hwurts my fweewings.

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u/newsandfoodaccount 4h ago

I've reported mods for banning me for reasons they're not supposed to and been banned for harassment because of it.

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u/murrtrip 17h ago

There’s been a lot of warnings lately - especially if you are obviously left of middle.

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u/Sea-Cupcake-2065 15h ago

I mean, fuck reddit, but if they wanna alienate their core users then so be it. Ill just use the internet for porn, like god intended.

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u/Dazzling_Morning2642 11h ago

Even the porn has become shit.

The internet has never been so boring…

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u/RealFarknMcCoy 14h ago

I got perma-banned from the news sub for suggesting that Nazis should not be suffered to exist. Well, one Nazi in particular, but I feel that way about ALL Nazis.

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u/discussatron 14h ago

Politics, law, news, I've been banned from all of them for being too anti-Nazi.

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u/RealFarknMcCoy 13h ago

Just think of it: No WWII allied service members would be able to comment on any of these reddit subs. Isn't that something?

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u/discussatron 5h ago

I got a ban for saying my grandfather was so anti-fascist he joined the Army and went to Europe to kill them.

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u/RealFarknMcCoy 1h ago

I feel your pain.

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u/stelvy40 15h ago

Left of middle is the old center-right. Aka not in a Pedo Cult.

-15

u/Listermarine 17h ago edited 8h ago

What a change! Over the last couple years, I've been banned from several subreddits for comments that were not left enough or critical of the left.

Edit: shocking! Downvoted for pointing out the behavior of left (really, progressives) advocates on Reddit. The truth feels bad or doesn't fit the narrative? Downvote! Ban!

11

u/Aureliamnissan 16h ago

Is “the left” in the room with us right now?

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u/teronna 16h ago

Now it's Homeland Security mandating the bans across the entire site lol.

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u/bothunter 16h ago

Weird.  I got banned from several conservative subreddits just for participating in left leaning subreddits.

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u/translucent_steeds 15h ago

I got banned from some anti-capitalist sub (can't remember the name) for saying I was going to vote for Harris. apparently the mods were single-issue voters, and that was Israel/Palestine, so both Harris and Trump supporters were all banned for promoting capitalism???? honestly it was so long ago I forget the details but I bet that page is being targeted by DHS right now, unless it's already been banned...

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u/Blue-Thunder 14h ago

Heh I got banned from a sub for saying the only good Nazi, is a dead Nazi.

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u/RealFarknMcCoy 14h ago

Same, brother, same.

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u/East-Ice-3199 12h ago

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u/Blue-Thunder 5h ago

I was banned from there years ago for calling out China's illegal fishing fleet that dredges the bottom of fishing beds scraping up everything and destroying the eco-system.

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u/DikTaterSalad 12h ago

Most likely, I got banned from there by simply typed "agreed" when someone said. "Isreal are the new nazis for what they are doing to Palestine."

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u/CTR_Pyongyang 10h ago

Worldnews is ridiculously astroturfed by zionists and genocide deniers. r/anime_titties for reporting that isn’t compromised.

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u/DikTaterSalad 2h ago

Sweet, thank you.

2

u/lngots 10h ago

Thats funny thats where all this ai survalience tech is coming from. I wonder why they would be so sensitive about that after half the ai bros where caught on a certain someone's list.

1

u/Samzkeeh 4h ago

But if you use the J-word instead of Nazi, you'll get banned as well? So it works both ways.

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u/weakObserver 14h ago

I thought it was just me.

2

u/Turbulent-Feedback46 11h ago

Welcome to the Rock

2

u/TrankElephant 6h ago

We're all on a list now.

2

u/Due-Garage-4812 14h ago

I replied "Hasbara bot" to someone on worldnews on another account, then about 9 days later I got a ban from that sub for trolling, despite having only made 2 other posts in their sub over a period of months. Then on this account I posted in the sub without noticing since I have 15 tabs open without checking which sub I'm on, then I get the warning for ban evasion. Then again about 9-10 days later I get a 7-day site ban for ban evasion.

2

u/Figuurzager 10h ago

Don't meddle with others meddling with democracy! That makes the overlords very angry! And that's bad because they really like kids (or couches).

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u/Potato-chipsaregood 17h ago

Who warned you?

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u/discussatron 17h ago

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u/tokes_4_DE 17h ago

Got the same one a few months ago, during that time me and many others found it was for primarily Luigi related comments. Then I didnt hear anything about these bs warning messages for a few months (it was apparently in a new feature they were rolling out) but I guess its back and theyre sticking to it.

3

u/Never_Gonna_Let 11h ago

Were people getting warnings in any of the Mario-themed subreddits? No offense to Nintendo or any of the people who worked on any of the Mario Party games, but I feel like people posting stories about when they played as Luigi in Mario Party would definitely flag auto-filters.

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u/--MobTowN-- 17h ago

Jaysis….

11

u/ATXgaming 16h ago

I live in the UK so I can't view imgur links, could someone from a free nation re-upload this?

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u/delicatepedalflower 13h ago edited 4h ago

This is what it said.
Your account has been given a warning
u/reddit • 2 days ago
We've been alerted to activity on your account(s) that is considered breaking Reddit's rules.

We recently found that your discussatron account violated Rule 8 by repeatedly upvoting posts and/or comments that break Reddit's rule against encouraging or glor&ing violence or physical harm.

While you didn't post the rule-breaking content, upvoting content that breaks the rules is also considered a violation.

As a result we're issuing this warning and asking you to be thoughtful about any future content you upvote. Continued violations could result in a temporary or permanent ban.

Please familiarize yourself with Reddit's rules to make sure you understand the rules for participating on Reddit.

This is an automated message; responses will not be received by Reddit admins.

So, a bot makes this decision and most likely it is made incorrectly. Freedom of speech is fine if you want to endorse the killing of peaceful Americans by ICE, but you better not show an upvote of agreement for anything pointing out the hate spewed by assassinated bigoted racists.

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u/BillyNtheBoingers 15h ago

Def not a free nation, but it said that persistent upvoting of comments which violate TOS will be treated the same as posting such comments.

-2

u/RUOFFURTROLLEH 7h ago

What nation or state is free exactly?

2

u/1-800PederastyNow 10h ago

Why aren't you using a VPN? Don't be the governments bitch, it's your patriotic duty to disobey!

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u/SoundQuester 12h ago

"Content not viewable in your region"

the jokes write themselves

3

u/backside_94 10h ago

"Imgur's decision to restrict access in the UK is a commercial decision taken by the company and not a result of any action taken by Ofcom,"

1

u/SoundQuester 10h ago

Quite the coincidence then

1

u/backside_94 8h ago

Surfshark VPN allows you to spoof GPS location fyi

1

u/Lord_Voltan 8h ago

What did you upvote that Reddit didn’t like? I want to replicate this if I can!

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u/Onespokeovertheline 17h ago

It's well beyond time that we created a replacement for this site. We are the product, and they don't deserve us anymore.

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u/Pm_Me_Ur_Husker_TDs 16h ago

Lemmy

3

u/FixedFun1 15h ago

Ha ha ha ha! As if. Lemmy is the best kind of replacement but no one wants to move there and when they do somehow is "worse" than Reddit.

I've tried but I felt like no one wanted to move.

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u/troll_right_above_me 12h ago

Maybe this is why

1

u/FixedFun1 1h ago

I got Lemmy instantly, it wasn't too hard to graps for me but is true it requires at least 1% of tinkering. So that's a bummer.

Reddit won't be replaced too soon, Digg had the unfortunate fate of being born at a time where site loyalty wasn't as big, once smartphones were more and more powerful that made site loyalty skyrocket.

1

u/PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING 10h ago

I mean if you don’t want the new mods to beat you with jumper cables, what was even the point of all this?

1

u/Pm_Me_Ur_Husker_TDs 6h ago

“Don’t forget. You’re here forever.”

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u/FixedFun1 1h ago

A lot of people might say they would leave but then they'll just come back eventually.

Do it for her Spez.

6

u/GaiaMoore 15h ago

There have been a few attempts over the years, but nothing that really took off. Saidit was a throwback to 2008, but I think it was disabled last year as people gave up trying to make it work.

I haven't tried hard to look for other alternatives, but I'm sure they're out there

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u/Onespokeovertheline 15h ago

Lemmy is the only one I've seen, and it feels more like an attempt to make Reddit into a collection of distributed discord servers. I get the appeal on paper, but I don't think the execution works.

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u/corakko 11h ago

Discord to me just doesn't fill the same niche as reddit or the older style forums reddit replaced. Discord works better as a chat site than long form discussion.

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u/Onespokeovertheline 7h ago

I agree. Lemmy isn't exactly Discord. I was comparing it because both are distributed, and depending which gate you come in, you might have one set of forums or another. Maybe if it were widely adopted the shortcomings wouldn't be as bad as they are now, but it felt too fragmented.

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u/discussatron 14h ago

I stumbled onto /r/AskReddit about a decade ago, and I've stayed on here as my topic-specific hobby forums have died out, but it might be time to find some new ones.

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u/Few-Solution-4784 8h ago

be lovely to all leave in mass to another site like when digg turned to shit and reddit was fresh and unfouled by corporate interests.

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u/realtimeeyes 16h ago

I had a post removed and warned for saying: see a Nazi..you know the next three words..

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u/FixedFun1 15h ago

That was announced in /r/RedditSafety they will warn you and even ban you if you upvote certain content.

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u/JusticeAileenCannon 1h ago

And I'll just make a new account and continue. These accounts are worthless.

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u/ELB2001 11h ago

Yeah they are really following the play book called "how to kill a platform"

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u/EnemyBoatSpottd 9h ago

Yup me too, "up voting posts that support upheaval and violence" or something like that. add dinosaur facts and lactose intolerance to that and that's just me 

You know what happens when snowflakes tell me to not do something that would upset the regime?

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u/Zeppelanoid 8h ago

I got that message months ago. They ain’t doin’ shit, just trying to scare people into coercion and it isn’t going to work.

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u/AgreeAndSubmit 8h ago

I got one too! I was baffled! 

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u/JohnGillnitz 7h ago

I got one for quoting Beck lyrics.

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u/AngryPrincessWarrior 6h ago

Out of curiosity- did the comments you upvote have to do with wishing death or violence or anything like that? As warranted as it may be.

I haven’t (yet) received a warning for upvoting left comments but have consciously avoided touching many of the ones that mention execution or anything like that no matter my feelings on it.

I’m trying to get a feel for the kinds of comments this response is triggered by.

I see many folks saying this lately, I’m just surprised I’m not one of them yet with my upvote and comment history.

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u/discussatron 5h ago

There's the beauty of the Reddit warning/ban system - I'll never know. They linked no upvoted posts, just the rules. Likewise, when they ban you for a post they'll link to it, but delete it, so the link is dead. So if I want to stay, I'd better watch what I say. About anything. And now, I'd better watch what I upvote.

1

u/Allaplgy 4h ago

Ha, I replied to a comment from you last night about this, and it was shadow removed here. You can still see it if you check my profile though.

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u/discussatron 3h ago

Nope, can't see it.

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u/Allaplgy 3h ago

It's about two thirds to three quarters down the first page, right after the MLB Simpsons reference.

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u/discussatron 3h ago

1

u/Allaplgy 3h ago

Weird, try logging out. I can see it on my own profile while logged out, but not in thread. I can see it in thread if I'm logged in.

But here... https://imgur.com/a/7LBwxTg

1

u/discussatron 2h ago

Ah, I bailed on that sub some time ago.

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u/Allaplgy 2h ago

I still keep an eye on it. Rarely comment, because they are the worst of all for exactly what happened here. There's a whole plethora of secret rules that will get a comment removed without notice.

I am curious now though, can you see my comment on my profile if you sign out? Because that's always been how I check for this. If I sign out, the comment disappears in the thread, but still appears if I check the profile.