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Comment by ralfd | Hacker News Reader

Come on, be honest, what did you do?

I have had my account since like 2013. I browse the site and hit like on things, but I only have a handful of posts going back over the years. Occasionally, when I do try to post, it stops me because they think I am a bot. Meanwhile, I see what are clearly and unambigously bots follow me all the time, I see identical messages repeated across obvious botnets. Their bot detection is just very bad.

Also, while we're on the subject, I used to have two factor enabled. After Elon bought the site, they forced me to disable two factor for insane reasons, iirc you needed to pay for a blue checkmark if you wanted two factor. Today for the first time they've started blocking my access to even view the site until I authenticate with a qr code from an android or ios device. The future of the internet is bleak.

Everything is locking down so hard. When someone says they got banned without breaking any rules, I believe them because it happened to me, but also assume there's some reason they appeared out of the ordinary. It's not going to be fair either, like they trust phones more than PCs.

It happened to me this past weekend. I post engineering related things, and out of nowhere blocked, no reason, no email, no communication. I just sent an "appeal" but don't know what the hell I'm appealing.

This destroys my trust not just in X, but in social media. If bots are this big of a problem, then I guess I can't use them if there is a risk out of nowhere my account is hit. The network effect is real though.

Had this happen on Reddit, and the kafkaesque injustice rankles.

No reason, no communication, just one morning 10+ years of posts and comments all gone as well as anyone who had ever replied. The "appeals" page said my appeal (for ???) was granted, but it's still broken, and the appeals page lies and mocks my by claiming my account is in good-standing as a reason not to let me contact anyone. And good luck contacting anyone with a new account when it infects the new one!

Especially on the tail end of COVID isolation, it was a social sucker-punch, a whole online identity gone, with no reason or solution. I considered responding to their pre-IPO email offers just to contact someone...

Yeah that sucks. Social media shouldn't have this power. I don't recall phone companies banning people by the thousands after listening to their calls.

These sites also wait until they are very large to act this way. HN has been pretty good I guess, but it's not quite social media.

Same thing happened to me!

I had a comment deleted by reddit admin & it banned my account, I appealed and received a message apologizing for the mistake and they unblocked my comment. But my entire account is still banned! Screw the comment I want my old account back. I've appealed many times but of course, no response. It's just being sent into the void.

Seems there is just no reason to use the website anymore. Either you post the most boring hive-mind nonsense, or otherwise just get banned.

Happened to me when I did literally nothing but make an account. Tied to a Gmail.

I was flagged by Facebook to provide a government ID years ago, presumably because I tend to use a VPN and never really provided any personal information. I imagine it doesn't take much on any of the other social media platforms to look too much like an anomaly before it warrants a suspension. The platform has nothing to lose since "personalization" and ad revenue won't be lost; in fact, you wouldn't want your personalization algorithm to be trained on such users.

dared to use twitter with only an anonymous email is my guess. musk demands you phone and biometrics

Phone number requirement was thankfully removed some time after Musk took over.

Right now you need either a phone number or an actual phone (hardware ID) plus email

Exactly. A passcode and email is significantly more privacy-forward than a phone number. A leaked passcode hash is meaningless on the internet and can't be used to triangulate you.

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