all 69 comments

[–]Ideal 22 insightful - 2 fun22 insightful - 1 fun23 insightful - 2 fun -  (11 children)

Interesting. Not so much the ban, but more the way you described the forum takeovers in your last post. "The appearance of them being the popular majority" describes reddit fairly well, as well as the way consensus is manufactured there. I don't think many people understand (including myself) how sophisticated the attacks are, but I can see the results over the last 10+ years of using Reddit. It just slowly degraded into increasing amounts of propaganda, and there's no way it was organic. At this point I think a decent portion of these attacks and posts are done using AI, and it may be that the solution is an equally sophisticated AI.

[–]magnora7[S] 10 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 3 fun -  (7 children)

I don't think many people understand (including myself) how sophisticated the attacks are, but I can see the results over the last 10+ years of using Reddit. It just slowly degraded into increasing amounts of propaganda, and there's no way it was organic.

When I became saidit admin, it showed me how much of this there is... for how bad it appears as a user, just keep in mind you're not seeing 95% of the things which are deleted. Yet I see every single one of those things. It shows you a lot.

I think you're right a lot of the attacks are AI, I've removed a bot that keeps re-creating itself to post propaganda. The text is always copied from text snippets on pastebin.com text files which show up in google searches. This is just one type of bot of many. And that's not even mentioning any paid shill human beings, which has become more popular as corporations and governments have realized what a cheap form of PR it is to brigade forums.

AI may be the solution and maybe that's what I ran in to today on reddit. It would make sense that when they first roll out the AI it would be faulty and thus be double-checked afterward by humans. Which is probably why I got unbanned 40 minutes after I was IP banned.

[–]SaidOverRed 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (6 children)

I appreciate your practical discussion you linked in OP. If the attackers & pedos upvote each other, wouldn't that help track/ban them faster? Like, sure a regular user my accidentally upvote the wrong thing, but if it happens to different posts on different threads then that's a good indication to check/ban that user too. Obviously it could be circumvented (which offers only temporary respite) or abused (causing frustrations similar to what you linked. But I figured it was promising enough to mention.

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

If the attackers & pedos upvote each other, wouldn't that help track/ban them faster?

I actually mentioned this in the original post. They know about this and upvote other things to make this sort of detection more difficult. It's typical they will "age" the accounts by pretending to be a normal user for a week or two, and then switching over to propaganda promotion mode, which makes it harder to detect, and they know that which is why they do it. It's an arms race in a way, and some of these people are quite skilled at destroying forums

[–]SaidOverRed 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I'm ignorant of the whole game, but it does seem like it forces strong measures. I don't like zero tolerance stuff, but I suppose a 1 strike and you're out would be fine with hidden, randomized 'aging' before removing the strike. Thus an accident won't result in a ban, but doing it repeatedly would. And they wouldn't know when they get to misbehave again. It wouldn't solve the problem -- rotating accounts would work -- but it does stifle it and drag out the process to where it can hopefully be drowned out unless there are truly huge number of accounts being made. Just my two cents.

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

unless there are truly huge number of accounts being made

Yeah we're talking about individuals making hundreds or thousands of accounts singlehandedly, so yes that's part of the territory

[–]SaidOverRed 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Oh wow... I assume there are methods to detect that. There can't be enough VPN'd IPs to manage that consistently, although I admit that finding them after the fact would be no easy task. I assume human-checking has to be a necessary part of the equation at that point. I hope saidit has someone doing that. Not that I would want to be the one poor guy who's job is to figure out what they are up to.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There can't be enough VPN'd IPs to manage that consistently

That is unfortunately incorrect.

We have algorithms, but it's a real battle tbh

[–]SaidOverRed 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well that shows how much I bother to ban evade. I figure if someone doesn't want me around, then I don't need to be there. Even if I get banned for arbitrary or stupid reasons that are out of your control (as has happened on both subsaidits and subreddits), I still figure they aren't worth my engagement at that point.

I don't have much else to add but I will point out that the "context" button when replying in the unread area does a really poor job of actually providing context. And also, you might want to do a short AMA. Saidit is small enough, I would hope you're unlikely to be trolled too hard during it. But that could be my optimism talking.

[–]5Nco2VME7FpWVbuS 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

A friend of mine went to a talk by one of the founders of Reddit a while back (5 years maybe) and they talked about how Reddit was initially mostly bots so that they could make it seem more active than it really is. If there were bots that could do that years ago I wouldn't be surprised if they could do much worse things now.

[–]mongre 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

May I suggest an alternative?

[–]Happy_face_caller 13 insightful - 6 fun13 insightful - 5 fun14 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

So you talking about the Maxwell/Epstein connection is bad, but not the Rddit board members in Maxwell/Epstein’s back pocket? At least admin are Consistent in their censorship. Stay classy Rddit

[–]command_deleted 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wait Apstein bribed reddit owners?

[–]Folzy 13 insightful - 5 fun13 insightful - 4 fun14 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Make Orwell fiction again

[–]zyxzevn 13 insightful - 3 fun13 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Thanks for overview. It looks like there is browser-fingerprinting AND IP-address logging.

It seems that they use keywords and machine learning to check for certain unwanted information.
Probably to protect certain people or groups. Especially the criminal ones.

[–]King_Brutus 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I was IP and device banned from Reddit. They banned all my alt accounts when I was on mobile and when I made a fresh one after the ban on my desktop they banned that one within minutes. Reddit does some shady shit to keep people off their site.

[–]Jesus 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Newhouse?

[–]Minedwe 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (8 children)

it definitely seems they're ramping up their efforts when it comes to automated wrongthink detection (and normal AI-based rulebreaking detection, I guess). What really surprised me is that they unbanned you and that it seems to have been automated. Very un-redditlike of them to allow a competitor and repeat wrongthinker to continue using their site, but good regardless that they do.

[–]magnora7[S] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

What really surprised me is that they unbanned you

Yes that very much surprised me too. I think they have humans reviewing the automated decisions, would be my guess

[–]asterias 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Maybe they noticed your post here?

[–]linktrees 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I feel like the comments are likely AI generated as well. It's a multi-pronged propaganda attack.

These kids have known nothing else in life besides what they see on reddit and that's all their peers see too. It's on their sports, video games, streaming, messaging apps. EVERYTHING says they have to support this movement or else they're the enemy.

Who wants to be labeled a racist bigot and shunned from society? No friends, no lovers, no employment because you don't go along with the accepted views. So, people just don't know any better. It's super fucked up and I never thought I'd see this but technology makes it way easier to control the narrative.

[–]Minedwe 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The comments are probably shills, not AI. Promoted or allowed alt accounts that shill for the site, pedos, BLM, china, whomever it is politically and economically good to promote.

[–]Jesus 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Yes, it isn't people doing this but their algorithms. They do this stuff automatically and use plausible deniability.

[–]Minedwe 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Exactly. Whenever they remove wrongthink they can say "oh uh oops it was automated!" if it gets too big or notable to keep them banned or removed.

[–]ASSBUTTER 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

i am a reddit spy. my name is assbutter.

[–]SaidOverRed 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

With that name? Nah reddit can't manage that humor. Username is far too refined.

[–]itsoktobewhite 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

Reddit is infested with pedophiles at the admin and 'power mod' level.

[–]command_deleted 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Is there a link to leads in this matter?

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

There's a case to be made that Reddit is engaging in anti-competitive conduct by banning Reddits which discuss better alternatives to Reddit. There's a case to be made that banning you specifically is anti--competitive conduct.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]antireddit 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Spez is just a highly influential figurehead. The Newhouse family cabal ultimately call the shots now. They own the joint and reddit changed dramatically when they took over.

    [–][deleted] 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

    I'm banned from so many subs on Reddit

    I always make accounts every 6 months and stop using my old ones, I thought most people did this, I also use a vpn so I never have the same IP more than a week

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    I am tech-challenged. Does using a VPN help to keep your IP off the radar? Can they (any they) find you anyway?

    [–]HegeMoney 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (2 children)

    Maybe it's time to level up to... Magnora33!

    Jk.

    ;-)

    [–]Jesus 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

    Join a lodge?

    [–]Hadza 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

    I'll be here waiting for Magnora1488. Any day now...

    [–]PencilPusher55 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

    There was a thread about a black woman kicking the shit out of a preschooler on reddit and I posted "Typical blacks". Suspended for 3 days. I deserved it, but FUCK are they cracking down!

    [–]RedditExPat69 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

    Thankfully, it looks like they unbanned it all after about 40 minutes.

    Why thankfully? WGAF about reddit?

    [–]magnora7[S] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

    It's still useful sometimes, and if saidit goes down the subreddits /r/magnora7 and /r/saiditnet are useful for getting announcements out. But I mostly don't care

    [–]roguecanine 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    I would feel anxious relying on reddit to be a backup for saidit. Like Reddit has proved they would ban at their leisure without even trying to look just. They are basically a dictatorship at this point, doing what they want and banning whoever.

    [–]Jesus 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    They are owned by newhouse.

    [–][deleted]  (1 child)

    [deleted]

      [–]Jesus 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

      Twitter does this too. I had a twitter account and then was banned. Got a vpn tried to make a new one and I keep getting errors when I sign-in. When I turned off thr vpn and signed in, I was banned.

      [–]madcow-5 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

      They started IP banning / browser finger printing during the big purge a couple of months ago. I got hit by it, so did people I know irl.

      [–]Jesus 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      Made an account a day or so ago, around 80% of my comments, not that controversial were shadow banned and then I was permabanned when I started messaging mods.

      [–]suckitreddit 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      I said it once, and I'll say it again, Reddit is a pile of shit. I hope it dies.

      [–]chumbawamba 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      that's not an IP ban, delete your cookies

      [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

      Wow, it's not like you said anything that could be considered offensive, you're just describing how to run a site. Well, it's a shithole either way.

      [–]Jesus 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

      It's algorithms.

      [–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 4 fun2 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

      Al Gore rhythms sound like an inconvenient truth.

      [–]Jesus 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

      Plausible deniability. It wasn't algorithms it was Al Gore.

      [–]alkhd 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

      They banned you but let your post stay up? Or did you take the screenshot before the ban?

      I'm just surprised they'd ban and let the post stay up. Wouldn't they want to remove it/hide it until reviewed?

      Seems like a very weird system they have if they ban the user until the post have been manually reviewed, but let the post be up the whole time instead of hiding the post until a manual review has been made and if it broke some rule then ban the user. billion dollar companies often surprise with their incompetence though, so maybe i shouldn't be surprised?

      [–]TheCultureOfCritique 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      I was banned from Reddit and most of my posts stayed up. I was banned for evilwrongbad upvotes, not for anything I actually posted.

      [–]magnora7[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      The post was shadowbanned, so I could only see it when logged in and no one else could see it. This was 2 weeks before they banned they account

      [–]Godman 2 insightful - 4 fun2 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

      Who cares.

      [–]Jesus 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

      I bet their algorithms picked up the word "troll."

      Using troll or shill will get you banned. It has happened.

      [–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

      You might be right. It's disgusting people can't even talk about it

      [–]Jesus 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      It sucks because now no human element or decision making is behind a ban so they can use plausible deniability indefinitely. This isn't just reddit, they are doing it on YouTube too and will do it elsewhere.

      [–]happysmash27 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

      Where, exactly, do people advocating for pedophilia use hundreds of accounts and VPNs to create the appearance of being the popular majority? I always feel it is the opposite.

      …I believe that all information should be free, and a while ago made the mistake of extending that idea to child pornography. Because I don't feel like arguing about it again, let's just say I was wrong about it.

      In real life (in Southern California), it is not uncommon for people to agree with me or be indifferent, but on every single platform online, whether Reddit, Raddle, SaidIt, Twitter, etc, inevitably practically everyone will disagree with me VERY STRONGLY, ban me, or say something like "can't advocate violence, so K stands for anything but kill. KYS", even when I am only talking about people's reactions to the opinion rather than advocating for the opinion itself (which is way more effort than it's worth, for a form of expression which I do not like and don't think should have existed in the first place, but which unfortunately is still made of 1s and 0s and therefore fits with my definition of "freedom of information", with a bunch of exceptions too long to write here when the opinion itself is not the point).

      …On second look, it seems that now exactly one other person in that specific thread ended up at least partially agreeing with me.

      But my point is, that in general, the consensus online is usually near-unanimously against anything even close to pedophilia, to such a large extent that I usually try to avoid going anywhere near the subject for fear of being permabanned. I think the risk of astroturfing is much larger for other topics. I could be wrong, but I have not seen anywhere where pedophilia is not heavily shunned.

      [–]RedditSaidit 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

      Because I don't feel like arguing about it again, let's just say I was wrong about it.

      Were you wrong about it? Or do you just not feel like arguing a shitty point?

      [–]happysmash27 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

      I just don't feel like arguing the bad point, yes. I haven't actually convinced myself I was wrong about it yet, as much as I have tried, but am very tired of dying on that hill which I don't even particularly care about.

      [–]RedditSaidit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      I don't think you should be banned for saying child porn should be legal. I think anyone who makes child porn or takes active steps to make child porn legal should be perma-banned from life. But just saying it should be legal just lets everyone know you're either an idiot or a pedophile.

      [–]Pants 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

      This is messed up. I have had similar messages. You broke reddit. You're doing that too much, try again in X minutes.

      I am a political moderate. I stay away from political subs, except for PCM. I don't write hate words, I'm Not racist, I don't debate or bait feminists. I don't care about LGBTI anything.

      So anyhoo, I checked red it today, I had a bunch of conversations before bed last night... No messages. No replies. Nothing.

      Check my account, apparently I haven't posted a comment in the last ten days.

      [–]Trajan 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      I've seen similar fake messages on Twitter. Often when following links from moderate (but still wrongthink) subs, Twitter presents an error as if there was a systems issue. Copy the URL in to a new window and it loads just fine. Looks like they're using the referrer to inconvenience people seen as coming from literally Hitler subs that deny the reality of 300 genders.

      [–]ThePlague 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

      IF you are still using Reddit, even casually, I recommend using the Brave Browser with a private Tor tab. Also, if you wish to switch accounts for whatever reason, first logout in the Tor private tab, get a new Tor connection, then log in with the new account. That way, they won't be able to tie one account to the other via IP address. I would recommend similar precautions for any Big Soc site.

      [–]roguecanine 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

      Big Soc?

      [–]ThePlague 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      Big Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, etc

      [–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

      Not a big nothingburger, as even "technical difficulties" like this and other obstacles and strategies are cyber-terrorism and soft-censorship - and it works on the normies or they wouldn't do it.

      Do you think there's any chance that they uncensored you for who you are, where a normie wouldn't get a "second chance"?

      [–]Fetus_inhaler 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      While the admin does make a point about free speech, you do to. Pedos in general do these things. Same with groups that are shunned across the internet. They want to be the popular majority, so they do just that. I do think that pedos should be banned, but much like what they did with the new “hate speech” rules, I think it will be just another opportunity to ban people for disagreeing with them.

      [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

      they ban whosoever they choose for whatever reason they want these days, theyre everything they claim to stop anymore.