SoylentNews

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

In a move that isn't particularly surprising given their lack of support for intellectual diversity to date, Reddit has introduced outright bans [techraptor.net] to replace its shadow banning policy.

Reddit has introduced an “Account Suspension” feature [reddit.com] 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 [reddit.com], 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 [zendesk.com] (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. You have my word 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 [soylentnews.org] if you feel the need for that last statement to be expounded upon.

Original Submission