I wanted to publish constructive criticism towards Reddit on Reddit but unfortunately that’s basically impossible since they’ll do everything to censor/silence that for their own gains to not hurt their reputation (you might also get censored for mentioning Reddit alternatives like Lemmy).
So I have to do it here.
I’m addressing censorship because that’s basically the biggest issue.
I’m not always against all censorship as it can be beneficial in some circumstances to provide constructive discussion to not end up like X where everyone is shouting hateful opinions without getting heard anyways. (But very generally I’m still strongly against censorship).
My main problem is about wrongful censorship. Reddit is basically unusable for me since I had the experience multiple times that I get banned from a subreddit for actually no reason just because a moderator feels like it. And when I then ever accidentally post on the same subreddit with a different account (which is hard when there are multiple to keep track of) your whole access to Reddit gets banned for about 12 months by advanced fingerprinting (so even if you create a new account it gets automatically banned, so you basically cannot post anything on Reddit for a year).
While Lemmy is somewhat better in this regard I think it’s mainly only because it’s so small, is only known by a very small enthusiastic group and therefore needs less moderation. But I realized that even here once a post is slightly controversial it will get removed sooner or later. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets removed too. I know that the fediverse theoretically provides protection against censorship by being able to host your own instance but practically that’s very unrealistic to see properely moderated instances being used by enough people.
I think it’s a shame that if you’re looking into providing high quality topics and discussions that are valued by many people and you just want to learn by broadening your intellectual horizons, you can get banned every second because some moderator had a bad day.
And I’m not just talking about posting something maybe somewhat controversial that a moderator might not like. I literally had many situations where I posted completely normal posts that completely aligned with the subreddits rules. I could literally post a normal cat picture on a cat picture subreddit and get banned seconds later without being able to talk to the moderators. In some instances the cat picture post (I’m using that as a metaphor) didn’t even get published and I got banned anyways. Often it’s enough to have a single wrong word that is filtered by Reddit so your whole post won’t publish.
I think the core concept of platforms like Reddit and Lemmy can be very valuable but it’s executed very badly. There should be multiple independent steps of verifying if someone should get banned and in what way. And probably integrate a good test for joining the community so that it’s more likely for people to be rational from the start (that way you don’t even have to look at so many potential flags).
Maybe AI could be better for this by having less human emotion based judgement?
But I’m conflicted because on one hand these platforms can have such a great potential and value but on the other hand it’s maybe better to not use it anyways since it can be quite unhealthy to spend much time on there.
Anyways I think it’s sad we can’t freely express ourselves on social media and can’t have proper discussions. This really feels like being in a 3rd world country with dictatorship and this shouldn’t be the case in 2025. Especially nowadays where it’s extremely important to have open and trusted discussion about topics.
There should be a platform with good/useful censorship and a platform truly without censorship that isn’t owned by a Nazi billionaire. Or even better: have an all-in-one solution that has spaces without and with censorship to varying degrees (preferably a degree that can be decided by the users and not by the corporation).
3rd world country with dictatorship
Wow… if you are wondering why your post gets banned everywhere, it is maybe because you are the problem. Your entitlement doesn’t have a place in a rational discussion.
It’s just a hyperbole to explain how outdated the state of censorship feels to me. And well, that’s just my opinion and I should be allowed to have that opinion. That’s the exact point I was trying to make. But apparently you view it differently.
I acknowledge that my word choice might’ve been somewhat exaggerated but personally calling me entitled and not rational based on that is not fair in my opinion.
Your choice was not exaggerated, but plain wrong. Trump is censoring universities right now in the so called democratic first world.
i cannot see what you were actually banned for, but the fact you’ve been banned everywhere from reddit is kinda red flag tbh. i’ve seen people posting everything from the constructive criticism to ‘fuck spez’ for months and no one banned them. you might’ve been banned for different reasons except censorship. might it be that you just didn’t “read the room” or didn’t keep discussions constructive?
I think it’s really just the fact that there are moderators who ban people based on their mood. It has nothing to do with the actual content as I’ve seen many posts that seem actually questionable but haven’t been banned. Of course you only see the people who didn’t get banned and can post and you can’t see the people who are banned because well, they cannot post.
If I’d show you the times I got banned you will see that it is basically randomly and those moderators invent things that are far detached from reality.
The problem is that moderators here and on reddit (i believe?) are volunteers, so they are going to have personal limits on what they’ll accept. And if they can’t have those, they won’t do it. Someone else will have to volunteer for an unpaid position that can take up lots of their precious time on this earth.
Start a mod fund and pay people, is my suggestion. The only rewards at the moment for moderating are, like, a smoothly running community. Tiny, mostly irrelevant power. Being a big fish in a small pond. Personal satisfaction? You can get that being treasurer at your local beading club, but there you get to mess around with beads. I dunno.
As for making different platforms, there also has to be someone willing to do that work. Mostly thankless, and you’ll always get it wrong somehow. I’m amazed anyone bothers.
There should be multiple independent steps of verifying if someone should get banned and in what way. And probably integrate a good test for joining the community so that it’s more likely for people to be rational from the start (that way you don’t even have to look at so many potential flags).
How much would you pay to join a community with that level of protection for user rights? Like the old subscription based forums, some of which are still floating around the internet?
Because “multiple independent steps of verifying” is, frankly, going to be a lot of frustrating, thankless, and redundant work for moderators. I mean, we know how to safeguard people’s rights through legalistic processes. Courts do it all the time. It’s called due process. And due process is frequently a slow, complicated, and expensive pain in the ass for everyone involved. And I think very few people would want to do that work for free.
(Conveniently, this would also serve as a good test for joining such a community - people are more likely to follow the rules and act like decent human beings if a subscription they paid for is riding on it, and it would price out AI and spambots in the process.)
How about starting your own sub - here or on Reddit? Then you are the mod.
Should be “starting your own instance”, because otherwise you still have to conform to the rules of the instance you create your community/sub on.
“Look at me. I’m the
captainmod now.”
Yes, censorship is definitely an issue on even the Fediverse. A certain demographic wants the Fediverse to be an echo chamber. Fortunately, there are some instances that don’t operate that way.
If people want the Fediverse to replace social media, they’re gonna have to accept that there will people they don’t agree with.
The major advantage with federation is that you aren’t locked to one instance. If an instance censors you, you can find a different one and migrate your profile over there.
Still, the fact that people wig out if you express an opinion they don’t agree with is definitely an issue, considering how many Fediverse instances bow to the “free speech for me, not for thee” mentality.
