SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In a move that isn't particularly surprising given their lack of support for intellectual diversity to date, Reddit has introduced outright bans to replace its shadow banning policy.
Reddit has introduced an "Account Suspension" feature that will replace Shadowbanning for non-spammers, though previously shadowbanned accounts are not going to be automatically unbanned.
A post on July 28, 2015 by Reddit admin /u/krispykrackers explains the basics of Shadowbanning, a tool initially created to counteract spammers by hiding their content without letting them know their account had been shadowbanned. However, this was Reddit's only tool for an account-wide ban, and it has since been used on people other than spammers as well.
Account Suspension will be more straightforward and transparent than a Shadowban. An F.A.Q. page (sic) linked in the announcement post states that only Reddit administrators will be able to apply suspensions, which can be temporary or permanent. Permanent suspensions will result in a message about the account's status being added to that account's userpage.
See, I'm a veteran. This means I was willing to take a bullet for the right of my countrymen to speak their minds. On this at least I have not mellowed as I've aged. My personal line in the sand is that we will never site ban for anything but over-the-top spamming or gross/repeated illegal activity while I am on staff. See my journal if you feel the need for that last statement to be expounded upon.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:54AM
An outright account suspension is definitely better than a shadowban, since that way you know what is happening and can defend yourself. After all, invalid suspensions will happen. After all, it's still humans who operate this, not infallible gods.
The message on the user's page, on the other hand, is making things worse. It goes beyond self-protection of the site. I hope the deciders at Reddit are aware that this means that in case of invalid permanent bans, they open up themselves to libel litigation.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 12 2015, @12:32PM
Yup, this is better. I don't see any exposure to libel litigation though.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by TME520 on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:39PM
After all, it's still humans who operate this, not infallible gods.
Hahaha ! Don't speak such foolish words, little human.