Ask HN: Is anyone else feeling bad about Reddit's mechanisms
5 comments
You have my sympathies, Reddit is a Kafkaesque nightmare for anyone unlucky enough to hit one of the increasing number of edge-cases and invisible hazards.
My decade+ single account (in good standing, maybe one permanent subreddit ban ever, thousands of pages of comments, etc.) got shadowbanned one morning for no reason I've ever been able to find. The appeal was actually "granted", but somehow they didn't actually turn off the evil-bit, and then I couldn't contact anyone because the appeals-page claims my account was normal while all other stuff kept getting removed even after moderators manually approved it.
My decade+ single account (in good standing, maybe one permanent subreddit ban ever, thousands of pages of comments, etc.) got shadowbanned one morning for no reason I've ever been able to find. The appeal was actually "granted", but somehow they didn't actually turn off the evil-bit, and then I couldn't contact anyone because the appeals-page claims my account was normal while all other stuff kept getting removed even after moderators manually approved it.
Yeah, I actually stopped everything in the morning and thought about it for a while.
The rigid resistance to preventing users from protecting themselves from a _sitewide permanent ban_ feels ridiculous in retrospect.
I don't know if this is a reach, but it honestly feels like Reddit is trying to do two things:
- monetize attrition (manufacture traffic by forcing users to create new accounts)
- intermittent reinforcement/love bombing. I used to have an ex who performed the exact same pattern; start out loving and affectionate, then rapidly deteriorate into a wrongful accusations (in reddit's case, wrongful bans) which would just become a massive time-sink. Then she would "repeal" or reinstate me to keep me captive/grateful... then repeat the whole cycle again and again.
I was thinking about the panic I felt earlier, and the pattern was pretty much identical- harm, apology, relief, re-engagement, harm again, without ever committing to a low-cost and obvious fix.
I am really really starting to think that Reddit's "ban evasion" system is by design at this point
The rigid resistance to preventing users from protecting themselves from a _sitewide permanent ban_ feels ridiculous in retrospect.
I don't know if this is a reach, but it honestly feels like Reddit is trying to do two things:
- monetize attrition (manufacture traffic by forcing users to create new accounts)
- intermittent reinforcement/love bombing. I used to have an ex who performed the exact same pattern; start out loving and affectionate, then rapidly deteriorate into a wrongful accusations (in reddit's case, wrongful bans) which would just become a massive time-sink. Then she would "repeal" or reinstate me to keep me captive/grateful... then repeat the whole cycle again and again.
I was thinking about the panic I felt earlier, and the pattern was pretty much identical- harm, apology, relief, re-engagement, harm again, without ever committing to a low-cost and obvious fix.
I am really really starting to think that Reddit's "ban evasion" system is by design at this point
This is effectively how I got permabanned as well. Not with an alt, but I made a new account for reasons unrelated to bans, deleted my old account first, and when I commented on something on the front page, they banned me from the whole site for ban evasion.
2 years later (about a week ago), a search brought me to a post where someone has a file I would like. They seemed excited to share it with whoever wants it, but will only share it via DM for some reason instead of just positing it. I made an account and heard you can’t DM people right away, so I made some comments to get past the spam restrictions all over the place. I somehow got banned from the personal finance sub, I have no idea why, and it says they blocked me from even asking. 2 or 3 other subs deleted my comments automatically based on the account age. I assume if I accidentally try and comment again I’ll be banned. It has been a horrible user experience.
Being banned was the best thing that ever happened to me. Enjoy the freedom.
2 years later (about a week ago), a search brought me to a post where someone has a file I would like. They seemed excited to share it with whoever wants it, but will only share it via DM for some reason instead of just positing it. I made an account and heard you can’t DM people right away, so I made some comments to get past the spam restrictions all over the place. I somehow got banned from the personal finance sub, I have no idea why, and it says they blocked me from even asking. 2 or 3 other subs deleted my comments automatically based on the account age. I assume if I accidentally try and comment again I’ll be banned. It has been a horrible user experience.
Being banned was the best thing that ever happened to me. Enjoy the freedom.
Thanks, I kind of feel like I got unplugged from the matrix. A ton of existential anxiety just flooded back in but I also realize that Reddit probably wasn't the most efficient place for me to spend most of my time in.
I really miss r/homelabs though, that place is a treasure amidst the swamp of gender wars that the rest of the subreddits are
I really miss r/homelabs though, that place is a treasure amidst the swamp of gender wars that the rest of the subreddits are
I disagreed with something they did two years ago so I deleted my account(s) banned them with my ad blocker and went on with my life.
I don’t even remember what it was. Probably something about monetizing user content or how they treated mods.
All the time you get back from Reddit is time to live the other parts of your life. One downside is that my writing voice gets less practice, but the solution to that is easy. Just write.
All the time you get back from Reddit is time to live the other parts of your life. One downside is that my writing voice gets less practice, but the solution to that is easy. Just write.
writing practice can be gotten anywhere hahah, there are tonnes of discourse communities on other social media and even message boards.
I just lament being able to pop into something like r/homeappliances to ask for device troubleshooting advice, but its water under the bridge at this point
I just lament being able to pop into something like r/homeappliances to ask for device troubleshooting advice, but its water under the bridge at this point
Why do you need to post? What did it ever do for you besides occupy your time?
Look up: Eglin AFB, maxwellhill, RedditLies, etc.
Look up: Eglin AFB, maxwellhill, RedditLies, etc.
Hey, I've been on Twitter before. I've seen the @RedditLies account and I think there's really too much gunk to sift through, never had the time to check how much of it was true. I appreciate the sentiment though.
you could look those up on Reddit too since that's where you belong.
Well if you mean I'm a shameful person for all of my personal life failures, you're probably right.. I think I disappointed you though, because even thinking of going on reddit these days makes me feel torn and miserable so I actively avoid it..
Thanks for the sentiment regardless, maybe one day I wil be able to fulfil your expectations by creating an alt to ask about troubleshooting home electricity questions... but in the meantime I don't feel being on reddit (where I should belong..)
Thanks for the sentiment regardless, maybe one day I wil be able to fulfil your expectations by creating an alt to ask about troubleshooting home electricity questions... but in the meantime I don't feel being on reddit (where I should belong..)
Yeah I got banned for the same reason with them recommending content from a sub that I was randomly banned! Reddit is ridiculous.
It's basically a matter of time before the algo pushes banned subs to your feed again and you get perma'ed so it's probably better to cut your losses early and get your information elsewhere
For context, Reddit encourages use of alts/alternative accounts, which is baked into its own app UX (same device alt switching).
#### Incident 1 Slightly under a year ago, r/Glowups had a rule where all accounts who have previously commented on a NSFW subreddit get permanently banned from the sub, of which you can find multiple supporting references:
https://imgur.com/xzaosHR source: https://www.reddit.com/r/unfairbanning/comments/1nmn0u6/banned_from_glowups_because_i_have_nsfw_content/
https://imgur.com/Wm2S9xY source: https://www.reddit.com/r/acotar/comments/1gczet6/comment/ltywbum/
https://imgur.com/Uy4P6Rp source: https://www.reddit.com/r/RandomThoughts/comments/1mauak8/comment/n5hhl2k/
At the time (2025) this was a site-wide, automatic, and enforceable ban on any NSFW tagged account (eg. especially if you were following NSFW jokes like r/chairsunderwater or NSFW advice like r/sexadvice).
- I was (unknowingly) caught in the automated blanket ban on one of my accounts.
- Because I follow similarly themed subs (r/UglyDuckling, r/Glowups) on all of my alts, Reddit's algorithm pushed r/Glowups to the fyp of one of my accounts.
Result: I commented on algo-pushed content from r/Glowups BEFORE I had even logged into the banned account to realize I had been banned.
All of my accounts therefore received the "ban evasion serious infraction" strike from something that was essentially not yet visible to me.
I didn't even try to appeal this because (1) I was busy jobhunting at the time and (2) the reddit appeal textbox is only 250 characters long.
#### Incident 2 I posted a suggestion that there should be a way to block subreddits cross-account so that binding and permanent penalties are not so easily tripped
https://imgur.com/gDeqvfg source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ideasfortheadmins/s/BPrmbihDue
My suggestion received support (refer to the links) and was removed because "aim to focus on ... constructive, and avoid being destructive..."
The last line is what got me thinking- it suggests that features assisting rule compliance is dangerous for Reddit somehow?
#### Incident 3 I was helping someone who appeared to be overpaying for a helper service. I was wrongfully banned for a fuzzy keyword match that later repealed.
https://imgur.com/0q58xMd (ban)
https://imgur.com/PnXbrj8 (repeal)
However, due to the ban (before the repeal) I went on an alt which was 5 years old. Guess what happens when the reddit algorithm pushes you content from subs from 5 years ago... I tripped the ban evasion filter again. Permanent ban.
I have been very addicted to Reddit in the past two weeks, so maybe it is good that I got permabanned so I can give myself some space and reclaim my life. I am just kind of sad that I will not be able to contribute to or interact with the less neurotic reddit LLM/data/cs spaces ever again.
In tl;dr: my sensing from my 3 incident experiences is that Reddit's design has zero intention of encouraging compliance to its rules (the opposite, actually): - Their own algorithm encourages "ban evasion" - Any suggestion to let users comply with rules by self-exclusion from subreddits is censored/suppressed
I think the only way I could ever have avoided this was if I had obsessively devoted more of my 9-5 working hours chasing Reddit absolution through the numerous subreddits with automated blanket banning capabilities. Which I honestly don't think is ever realistic for me.
Thanks for reading and sorry for my question having so many rant-ish points. I just really needed to post about this to process things and get some thoughts.