r/fantasy "We did it, Reddit!" Banned an author because of accusations, only to realize they were false

submitted by [deleted] from (self.MeanwhileOnReddit)

I think this illustrates what reddit has become, downvotes encourage eco-chambers and degenerate in to mob mentality. Eventually leading to power triping mod mentality.

Here's the link to the stickied thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/b6huo8/an_ed_mcdonald_author_update_news_and_apology/

By their own admission:

It appears that Ed McDonald was falsely accused of actions that were not true.

...

MONDAY/TUESDAY

The r/Fantasy moderating team discussed what was happening and reached out to several of the individuals who posted information. We checked in with industry people who also heard about this wave of news to try and see what was happening. Multiple sources and multiple reports all said the same thing about Ed.

Based on all of this info over a 24 hour period, we r/Fantasy mods made the call on Monday to quietly ban Ed McDonald from the r/Fantasy community for 2019. Please check in again 2020 to see if things have changed.

..and to top it of:

The r/Fantasy mods received information from multiple sources that there appeared to be a smear campaign against Ed McDonald. Retractions were posted from those who had put things out there involving Ed.

Later on Wednesday, we received information that one of the two individuals involved was a longstanding r/Fantasy moderator. WTF.

I don't think there's a single news story on reddit where they don't bring out the pitchforks against someone without even bothering to look at the evidence.

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[–]Icalasari 9 insightful - 7 fun9 insightful - 6 fun10 insightful - 7 fun -  (2 children)

Well at least it didn't end in people harassing the parents of a victim of suicide this time

[–]OC_Rookie 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Hold up what?

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

Copied straight from, well, Reddit:

"After the bombing, a very intense circlejerk devoloped where some redditors tried to find the culprits. These folks mistakenly identified some missing kid of eastern descent as the perpetrator, which lead to this poor kid's mom receiving threats from random internet people. The kid was later found dead in a river if I recall correctly."

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

And these little power-tripping twats did it on the basis of accusations on issues outside of Reddit.

This is where normalizing censorship leads.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Dude, that's right on point. When people are banned for things that happen outside a sub-reddit you know the mods have achieved god complex mode. At this point it's actually normal to be banned from a sub-reddit for participating in another.

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

Apparently this was all orchestrated by one woman who got mad because he didn't want to have an international long-distance relationship with her after chatting for under a month, with her current husband helping her destroy him. Probably spun some tale about how awful this one guy treated her in the past and Nice Guy husband was happy to white knight and help her out. P0x0rz was the mod involved, though I'm not sure if he's the husband.

Of course the way the /r/Fantasy mods handled it was atrocious with the most disingenuous apologies ever.