Is Reddit doing mass bot suspensions? | Hacker News Reader

Is Reddit doing mass bot suspensions?

reddit.com

68 pointswjb18278 comments

I've mentioned it before, but Reddit is so incredibly, unbelievably user-hostile nowadays that I don't understand why people use it. I understand that it provides some with a sense of community, but they've shown time and time again that they don't care what you think, they only care about what they can extract from you. Communities not advertiser friendly are destroyed. Others are quarantined, and users shadow banned for showing wrongthink. They no longer let people view nsfw boards without logging in, just so they can gather that juicy data on people. The majority of top posts come from the same old users, generally paid content creators.

It's really time for a good alternative to Reddit to arise. They are ready for disruption.

> Communities not advertiser friendly are destroyed.

Incorrect. There definitely are subreddits that aren't very useful to advertise in and they're left to be.

> Others are quarantined,

Only the most vile shit.

> and users shadow banned for showing wrongthink.

I don't think they do shadowbans any more, stuff does however get caught in spam filters and removed by mods. And Mods have each and every right to take out holocaust-denying, racist, homophobic garbage.

> The majority of top posts come from the same old users, generally paid content creators.

Learn how to pick subreddits.

> Learn how to pick subreddits.

No, that much is very true. Top content is definitely driven by paid content creators, unless you are talking about massively small subreddits without traffic.

It can be true in massive subreddits, it isn't true in smaller ones. Smaller subs can and do have traffic.

Learn how to pick subreddits. It's the same with every social media.

> I don't think they do shadowbans any more

They absolutely do.

> And Mods have each and every right to take out > holocaust-denying, racist, homophobic garbage.

They 'take out' users for much less.

> They 'take out' users for much less.

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" Heavily depends on the subreddit and there are examples of it extending in all directions.

As do the moderators of Hacker News.

They 'take out' users for much less.

obviously in a non-educated manner, or on a personal preference basis ?! appears so, yes. i still try figure out what happened to my account i can't login with all of a sudden

whatever, it's not transparent and not even possible to figure out if, for instance, one got banned when eg l/p reset appears to work [emails sent, new pw chosen] but still one can't login [at login it keeps shouting : 'password incorrect']

where to go, what to do ? their >help< lets one circle in a way more dumb dull manner than opting for self-mummyfication journey on the shortest Moebius band imaginable

Really

I tried the default non-logged page and I think 9gag was better than that.

I can't describe in non-colorful analogies how I felt seeing that so I won't bother. But I'm sure that once the old theme goes so am I

> Communities not advertiser friendly are destroyed.

Name a couple, I'm curious what the difference between "advertiser friendly" and "openly hostile to site rules" is.

You could argue that site rules are optimized for advertisers friendly content. (I don't actually know Reddit's rules)

You couldn't make that argument with the amount of porn that Reddit has.

I guess they'd offer advertiser the option to show their adds on NSFW subs or not.

Interestingly, the site rules happen to create communities that are almost entirely advertiser-friendly. What a complete and total coincidence!

Like the communist subreddits?

I should have asked what is "advertiser friendly" as opposed to not advertiser friendly.

I mean, advertiser friendly websites do better because people who like to make money using websites participate and drive up engagement. Shocker!

On this website, the "advertisers" are software development firms.

This entire line of argument is weakly defined if not started in bad faith.

update: I get where the OP is coming from now -- more oriented towards concern over consumerism and astroturfing, less concern trolling over politicization etc...

> what is "advertiser friendly" as opposed to not advertiser friendly.

This is a good question, as it gets to the heart of the conversation IMO. Thinking here, things that are advertiser friendly would probably both trigger a strong sense of identity (which can be exploited by advertising campaigns) without alienating other groups. Many conservative viewpoints push for limits to identity, seeing diversity of viewpoints as antithetical to what makes a good life, hence why many conservative viewpoints aren't as monetizable.

That's just me thinking out loud. If you see any flaws in my thinking or have any better theories, I'd be happy to read them.

> advertiser friendly websites do better because people who like to make money using websites participate and drive up engagement.

This is called astroturfing, and embodies what I consider to be the worst of Reddit. It provides people with a sense of community, but in reality it's just corporations trying to push a narrative to make money.

My conversation was started in good faith, btw. Not to say that my logic was/is flawless though.

They don't just ban subs randomly for the most part, they've slowly been changing reddit rules to make the site more advertiser friendly. So yeah, most of the below broke reddit rules, but not when they were created, they got banned shortly or immediately after a rules change, AFAIK. I think /r/thefappening was banned without a rule change, and I'm not sure what rule it broke at the time.

/r/nflstreams, /r/gundeals, /r/gunsforsale, /r/shoplifting, /r/thefappening, /r/darknetmarkets, /r/deepfakes

Figured. Those are all either promoting illegal behavior or existed to spread porn of non-consenting people. I am fine with reddit being hostile to that.

/r/gundeals and /r/gunsforsale were promoting illegal behavior?

From what I gather there were regular posts that facilitated illegal gun sales. /r/gundeals was banned and brought back after 90 days when mods and admins/legal got on the same page about what rules were needed and would work.

Ah, I didn't realize they brought back /r/gundeals.

I've been waiting for a new alternative for over 10 years now. Loads of "new reddits" have popped up pretty frequently since then, but they've all crashed and burned. Either they can't sustain activity, or they get taken over by communities that are incredibly hostile.

Reddit is an absolute dump, though. It just has enough constant activity that people will keep dealing with it until some major update breaks it for, like, a whole week and people migrate because they don't really have a choice.

Occam's razor suggests that any social media site that reaches a certain size becomes hostile. That's why no "new reddits" could gain traction without becoming just as bad or worse.

That's cynical. Follows that you couldn't have large (reddit-sized at least), good-natured platforms. I too see the tendency, but I think it will be solved.

Or just cyclical.

HN gets more activity than most reddit-likes, but it stays pretty tame compared to most others.

But it also lacks the general appeal that reddit has.

That’s because HN has a specific mission which focuses around tech and startups. Makes it easy for mod teams to manage content.

See my adjacent comment to yours, I feel like social networks that try to jumble users together indiscriminately of their personal interests are doomed to grow to this amorphous mass of disagreeableness that reddit turned into.

The naive approach to solving this would be to create small communities that can interact between themselves as part of a larger network. I'm not there with my project, but I'm getting pretty close. I hope that it will prove to be the correct solution. :)

The new movement to put forward federated small size communities for link aggregation and discussions has maybe a solution for your problem. The project I'm working on currently has these exact things as goals: https://github.com/mariusor/go-littr#about

Basically it wants to be a service that is easy to deploy, not resource hungry and with minimal overhead over the base federated protocol (ActivityPub in this case) that allows it to sustain a small/medium community that shares similar interests, but also have access to the wider federated community (composed of various instances of Mastodon, Pleroma, Pixelfed, etc.).

As a reddit user: it's still fine when you stick to old.reddit.com and the subreddits you know and like.

> They no longer let people view nsfw boards without logging in

That's false, or perhaps limited to the new webui – RedReader on android still shows them fine.

Agreed on the state of "frontpage", sure – but was it ever that different?

http://reddit.com/r/nsfw when viewed in TOR browser shows the following: "You must be 18+ to view this community You must be at least eighteen years old to view this content. Are you over eighteen and willing to see adult content?" Clicking yes gives NSFW pics.

Old.reddit.com is fine for desktop, but not for mobile. Mobile is an awful experience.

Try giving https://i.reddit.com/ a try - it's an ancient ipod layout but it seems to do the basic stuff.

Thanks, that’s way better.

> That's false, or perhaps limited to the new webui – RedReader on android still shows them fine.

Okay, so it's only possible with 3rd party apps? I think saying 'they no longer let people view nsfw boards without logging in' holds up.

>I've mentioned it before, but Reddit is so incredibly, unbelievably user-hostile nowadays that I don't understand why people use it.

If that's not a rhetorical question, are the "people" in your question about mainstream users or people like you?

I consider myself a "mainstream user" and have been using it since the beginning. I don't see that reddit is unbelievably user hostile nowadays. (I do acknowledge that it's annoying that I have to type "old.reddit.com" instead of letting it default to "www.reddit.com" to get the previous thread layout back.)

To describe my usage: I only go to the reddit front page to click on a few stories for that quick dopamine hit and that's it. I don't have a login. I don't participate in any subreddits or bother customizing my front page.

I'm guessing my usage pattern is similar to 90% of the lurkers on reddit.

>They no longer let people view nsfw boards without logging in

I just tried some random nsfw reddits and they don't require login. Just a "are you sure?" confirmation prompt.

> it's annoying that I have to type "old.reddit.com"

You can use their web version? Aren't they constantly trying to get you to install the app? Or are you on desktop? In which case... wow, I didn't know people could use that.

Desktop and yea, I'm also using old.reddit

if old reddit dies, then I'll probably stop using Reddit or significantly reduce my time spent there.

There's also i.reddit.com, which I find the least unpleasant of all. I never liked old reddit that much even before it was old, and I'm almost impressed that they somehow managed to improve it into something even worse.

i.reddit.com works like a charm for those who are on mobile and don't like the new Reddit. But NSFW sites cannot be viewed without login. They can be viewed with old.reddit.com, however.

Apollo still has some pain points but it’s easily my favorite iOS app.

>are the "people" in your question about mainstream users or people like you?

I hold very mainstream, socially conservative but fiscally liberal opinions. My viewpoints aren't welcome there.

> I just tried some random nsfw reddits and they don't require login. Just a "are you sure?" confirmation prompt.

My IP must be flagged for an A/B test, because I can't view some nsfw subreddits without logging in.

Edit: I hate doing this, but could someone explain the downvotes? I just want to understand how I'm wrong here.

Huh? "very mainstream, socially conservative but fiscally liberal opinions" - that is not "mainstream" in most parts of the world, including America.

The voting records in USA disagree with you.

To be clear, I have no trouble discussing the fiscally liberal portion of my viewpoints.

I don't want this to get derailed into liberal-vs-conservative views. My main point is that commonly held beliefs are suppressed on Reddit, I suspect for advertising.

There are subreddits for nearly every demographic though - are you referring to being down voted in a popular / high subscriber subreddit?

No, I'm talking about the rules of the site and the way those rules are applied affecting the culture and overton window of the site overall. Discrimination against white people isn't disallowed, but discrimination against other races is disallowed. Subreddits who don't accept changes in social norms involving trans, gay, or sex get blocked or quarantined. Raiding from liberal to conservative subreddits is overlooked, while the opposite leads to quaranting. It's a double standard that permutates though the entire site.

The double standard isn't total, but it is severe enough to suppress certain non-monetizable viewpoints.

Socially conservative but fiscally liberal is much of the republican party of the USA. Fiscal liberalism is free market capitalism, and socially conservative is like religion or nationalistic preservationism or whatever.

Or are you thinking of the weird America centric definition of liberal that means vaguely "aligned with the democratic party".

If you're logged in there's an option in user prefs to always use old.reddit, even on www.reddit

It's sad what Reddit has become. I remember a decade or so ago Reddit was strongly in favour of free speech and would welcome all discussion and communities so long as they were acting within the law.

Understandably they took a small step back early on and decided to remove communities sharing pictures of children, but jumping forward to today Reddit is almost unrecognisable...

Pressure from advertisers has caused them to ban adult content from the front page, and as you point out it seems they're actively trying to make it as difficult as possible to view adult content. More worryingly though communities with unpopular political positions are quickly removed to avoid potential media push back.

I know Twitter gets a lot of hate, but the political environment on Reddit is far more toxic and hostile IMO. To their credit I do occasionally see some right-wing trends and opinions on Twitter, but on Reddit even creating a subreddit in support of the current president of the United States is likely to be seen as a bannable offence.

There are some good alternative social networks cropping up now though. Unfortunately I haven't found one that isn't highly partisan, but there are alternatives for those of us who sometimes think the wrong things. I suspect any popular social media platform will succumb to the same corporate pressure with enough time though. Corporate interest has changed almost all websites from a decade ago in one way or another.

/r/the_donald was not banned because they supported the president and you know it. /r/conservative is a huge sub and strongly favors trump.

> The majority of top posts come from the same old users, generally paid content creators.

[citation needed]

Reddit is pretty ‘user hostile’ in terms of force feeding their shitty redesign, mobile app, spammy chat, AMP and other hot garbage, but taking some long overdue steps toward moderation has been a huge positive for me.

In my case: Because there are simply no better niche communities (or platforms). Forums have no threading, that makes any kind of forking discussion unreadable. Discourse is worse than most normal forums half the time. Twitter and all the twitter-imitating decentralized sites (that new reddit also tries to move towards and that big subreddits also have) have that whole hard-on for deciding on content based on the user who posted instead of the content.

What do I not read on reddit? Pretty much the stuff that’s posted on HN. HN has a worse interface (especially since there is no Reddit Enhancement Suite) than old Reddit, but the comments are usually (unless it’s US related) better.

So yes, I’d like to move off Reddit (and probably will if they ever turn off old reddit), but there is simply nothing comparable besides Reddit clones usually overrun with rightwing nutjobs and barely any other content.

> Because there are simply no better niche communities (or platforms

Also notably the Reddit clones all seem to just be full of the people who were banned from reddit... And while I defend everyone's right to free speech, I really don't want to read the speech of these particular people (I just checked the front page of voat. Top stories include a headline insinuating Hollywood is run by Jews, and a video that is described as "great for redpilling normies")

> Forums have no threading, that makes any kind of forking discussion unreadable

I don't think that's a good argument against forums. First threads can be split by mods, thus creating a new thread (not a perfect solution, but it can be useful when part of a thread goes too off-topic). And I've found that the reply mentions make forking conversation readable, even if it's not as good as the HN/reddit format. And even then, I don't really think the lack of forking is the biggest issue with niche forums, but rather than a sub reddit can be easily created (and many people already know reddit and may have an account), whereas creating/setting up a forums is more difficult.

>I've mentioned it before, but Reddit is so incredibly, unbelievably user-hostile nowadays that I don't understand why people use it. I understand that it provides some with a sense of community, but they've shown time and time again that they don't care what you think, they only care about what they can extract from you.

I didn't notice that, what do you mean? any examples?

Also this is untrue

>They no longer let people view nsfw boards without logging in

>Also this is untrue

>>They no longer let people view nsfw boards without logging in

Could be a regional thing.

>They no longer let people view nsfw boards without logging in

They don't always block it, it seems random.

Ummm, I've used it for years and haven't seen anything that is particularly user-hostile. Mind you, I use old.reddit.com desktop and Apollo on mobile.

> It's really time for a good alternative to Reddit to arise. They are ready for disruption.

Counteropinion: We don't need a good alternative.

I've learned a lot on reddit, but honestly, I've spent so many hundreds of hours there that I'm pretty sure it wasn't worth it. Reddit was extremely addictive and universally available, so I'm glad to see it gone (gone in the sense that it stopped giving me "my fix" long ago so it was easy to stop using it).

To say nothing of the smorgasbord of "dark UX" patterns now used on the site, so anathema to the ethos of its original creators.

I've managed to stay away from Reddit for years, but after the death of Google+ I needed a new source of communities for various hobbies, so I resorted to reddit. It's not as good, not as personal, but it's okay.

If you know a better place for this, I'd love to know.

I just make an account, random name, no email and fix everything in preferencs. Disable new design and save to get the old pref page. Then disable flair, custom themes, suggested sort, auto play, tracking outbound clicks, notifications; turn on compact links, save again. Go into personalization and disable all ad personalizations. Instead of joining subs and browsing the site, i usually just use an RSS reader.

I delete the account if I feel I'm starting to get too excited about my karma level.

"I've mentioned it before, but Reddit is so incredibly, unbelievably user-hostile nowadays that I don't understand why people use it."

I really don't see this "hostility". HN loves to complain about the new design, but I don't mind it, and sometimes I like it. RES works with it just fine. The only annoyance I get is RPAN, which I have been able to disable.

After 10 years of using Reddit, I don't feel like the site itself is worse. I just move to subreddits with good mods that don't want memes and I really enjoy my usage of the site.

I see, and I am not using hyperbole, literally none of the problems you state. Reddit is massive with more communities than either of us can appreciate and I think the direction the admins are going is actually fine? Sure, I don't agree with everything they do, but I don't see it as hostile or such a negative experience to my usage that I would think of leaving Reddit.

Try asking people what subreddits they go to, what their use-cases are like, when/why they use it. I really don't think it is so hard to "understand" why Reddit is a massively popular as it is.

I stopped using it a year or two ago (I thought it jumped the shark). I looked a the front page the other day. Do they hide comments until you log in? They seemed to fade off like the WSJ paywall.

Reading that thread, my guess would be that a bug at IFTTT has caused it to hit the rate limit for each reddit account that it was associated with. A Reddit process has seen this activity spike and banned the accounts, thinking they're all part of one bot farm (same activity, same time frame, same ip range etc).

It's pure speculation on my part, but it fits.

On a related note, I had a very early account (probably one of the first 1000 on the site). Years later reddit said they lost some laptop with account info, and so they reset all the passwords. My account was from before there was email. My attempts to get the account back all were met with responses that said "use email reset" and seemed to imply I'd done something wrong. My thanks for being a loyal user for over a decade.

FYI: You can still create an account without an email. Just leave the field empty at signup

I'll never understand how Reddit remains so broken in so many ways.

I've been using Reddit Ads recently, and the UI for it barely seems to work. The dashboard updates days later with incorrect information. Crazy for their main revenue source to be so flakey.

My IFTTT synced account was banned and my appeal rejected.

I used that account mostly for answering startup related questions and related content. If IFTTT was the problem why not just inform so? I used IFTTT to know if someone has asked any startup related questions on couple of subreddits.

I have never broken Reddit Content policy, In fact I have never received any warning before from moderators of the subreddit I participate in. I always post, comment relevant content appropriate to the subreddit and reddit rules.

Same position I'm in - woke up today to a permanent ban. Never done anything bad on reddit, never been warned for anything. This is a joke. I had IFFT linked from years ago when I was wanting notifications for keyboard sales I was interested in. Sigh.

My account got restored, moved IFTTT connections to a dummy reddit account.

just woke up to find my reddit account permanently banned. no idea why, i never post to weird subreddits or breach ToS. I went to the reddit access area and found I had IFFT linked to it from years ago when I was trying to set up alerts for sales of keyboards on reddit. I've appealed but this seems ridiculous...

How technically is IFTTT linked to Reddit? Is it "official", is there an API, is it Oauth, is it logging in as the user?

Reddit has an API, and it's Oauth-based so the user must give consent.

I don't think there's any part here which is "official" though?

Fuck Reddit. After their CEO or whomever (Spez) secretly editing the comments of other users without any indication of an edit, or when they started banning people for simply upvoting certain posts, what credibility does that craphole have left?

It's begging to be put out of its misery by a better alternative, just like it did to Digg.

Has anyone considered IFTTT may be using the reddit accounts for comment vote manipulation? It obtains full scope oauth permissions that last indefinitely.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com