Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 16 submissions in the queue.

Submission Preview

Link to Story

Shadow Bans Not Banny Enough For Reddit

Accepted submission by The Mighty Buzzard mailto:themightybuzzard@soylentnews.org at 2015-11-11 12:56:06
Digital Liberty

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