I lurked Reddit for a long time before creating an account which is now over 6 years old. I was a ‘Top Contributor’ and in the rewards program. 89k karma, never promoted violence or targeted any group, but I got a 7-day ban which was followed up hours later with a permanent ban. This is because of a comment criticizing Senator Radcliffe, trump, and Musk. The comment included profanity, (I called them hypocrites and cunts), but it wasn’t directed at any user or marginalized group. Just harsh political commentary.

Reddit initially issued a 7-day ban, which I appealed. That appeal was approved, the comment was restored, and they admitted it didn’t violate the rules. But the permanent ban still stands, and my follow-up appeals on that have been ignored. No explanation. No transparency. Just gone.

It’s made me realize how fragile “free speech” is on platforms like Reddit. You can insult regular users and get away with it, say horrendously racist, misogynistic, and homophobic things, but speak too plainly about powerful people and suddenly you’re promoting “hate.”

I combed through the Reddit rules, and nothing I have ever commented or posted violates them.

That’s the reason I’m here on Lemmy now. I’m trying to read more, scroll less, and engage with platforms that aren’t actively censoring political dissent. Who else is in the same boat? Is there anything that can be done to hold Reddit accountable or make people aware of they way they are censoring speech? This is my first Lemmy post. I marked it NSFW because of the profanity.

  • courageousstep@lemm.eeEnglish
    37·
    2 days ago

    I wish more people would travel here. We need people to build up the communities and interact with content. It’s refreshing to see comments under limited moderation, or moderation that actually targets the right kind of hate speech: the powerful punching down.

    I only visit Reddit when someone here links to it, since I’m assuming the comments are relevant, or if I’m doing a Google search and the answer is in a Reddit comment.

    Reddit is dying from the top down. People migrating away would show billionaires that they don’t control us.

    • TheHalifaxJones@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      I think what would help in this would be more options for apps (which there are thankfully) but also an easy to read guide on how this all works and how to sign up and get on board. It’s complexity vague in this effort. Which does weed out the certain kind of people who aren’t tech savvy. But it would help its numbers quite a bit.

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      top down, and INSIDE out, they were rottening from the core before it became top down.

    • BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca
      4·
      2 days ago

      When you absolutely have to visit Reddit for whatever reason, you should use an alternate frontend. The one I’m familiar with is called libreddit and functions similarly to nitter for twitter. You can do a search to find a large list of instances, but all you do is replace the “http://reddit.com/” part of the URL with the name of the instance. I usually use eddrit.com or safereddit.com

    • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      15 hours ago

      I think Lemmy is not super likable or usable. It tries to be something it can’t be imo.

      It would be better to just use the old style forums again, one niche topic/website style, and not a conglomerate. Or just use mass social media if that’s what you want, on a place like BlueSky or Substack with mostly consistent and understandable content moderation.

      • courageousstep@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        15 hours ago

        I haven’t had that experience. I barely understand how Lemmy works but this app I use makes it function like Reddit. I can’t even tell the difference, day to day, but vaguely understand that if the “country” my account is on starts to get weird, I can emigrate elsewhere.