Basically what the title says. I commented on a post and sent a link to my comment to my wife to get her take on the post and my response. To start, the link just takes her to the topic and not my comment. If she tries to find my comment it isn’t listed. If she manually goes to my profile and tracks down the comment all it says is “[Removed]”. However, from my perspective the comment is still live with 1 view and no activity. I’ve tried closing my browser, refreshing the page and everything and for me the comment is still visible even on the page for the post. For everybody else though it has been removed.
The crazy thing is the comment isn’t even controversial; somebody asked for marriage advice and I gave some. The “removal” seems to be automated too because I sent her the link basically as soon as I posted the comment and it was already shadow banned.
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Silently is how you’re shadow banned. That what shadow banning means.
I noticed if you swear too much they won’t make your comment visible. So I swear like a sailor. Fuck their site if they don’t want actual engagement. Just want to appeal to advertisers.
What’s the point of posting if your comment isn’t going to be visible?
I posted a comment because I had something to say. Needing to be heard is different.
Edit: removal of line that was needlessly
aggressivecondescendingWhy are you being so aggressively condescending to that poor commenter? They asked an innocent question.
I’m autistic and genuinely can’t see the
aggressioncondescension. I’ll edit it, maybe it’s just last line?Edit: misread, ADHD
That’s what shadow banning is. Hence “shadow”. Other banning you get notified about. Shadow banning essentially black holes you so that nobody except mods and admins can see your content.
I don’t think what OP experienced was a shadowban. It sounds more like a regular comment removal.
If the bot or mod doesn’t reply to you, you don’t get notified iirc.
That’s true but they wouldn’t be able to see their comment still available if that were the case.
In any case I was just commenting on the shadow banning part. Seems that OP didn’t understand what shadow banning was so I was explaining.
Are you sure you’ve been shadow banned? You can check your account here.
What you’re describing just sounds like a regular comment removal by automod without a reply telling you about it (so you don’t get notified either).
If she tries to find my comment it isn’t listed. If she manually goes to my profile and tracks down the comment all it says is “[Removed]”. However, from my perspective the comment is still live with 1 view and no activity.
That’s how removal works. It’s still visible to you, it shows up as [Removed] to others. Iirc comments by shadowbanned accounts just don’t show up at all to other users.
Edit: Are they even still removed by now? Might have just been a tentative removal pending moderator approval. I do see recent marriage-related comments on your Reddit profile (assumed same name as here) which I can find in their respective threads.
You’re right, it appears to be back now. It’s just annoying to have probably half my attempts to contribute auto moderated by a bot because I included some trigger word, or I forgot to add the proper “flair” etc.
It’s still visible to you, it shows up as [Removed] to others
I still call this shadowbanning if it’s just the comment and not the whole account, because intentionally hiding from someone that nobody is seeing what they write is what shadowbanning is all about.
But how can it be a shadowban if no one got banned? Shadowremoval or shadowdeletion would make sense, but shadowban sounds misleading for that usecase.
I used the term shadow ban in the OP because honestly it feels like it happens a LOT to me, and for things that honestly, I don’t think are controversial, don’t contain excessive (or any) swearing, etc. I commented on a video of somebody passing out and said “don’t lock your knees” and the comment got removed for being “too similar” to other comments, per an auto response I got. I told a lady being attacked by a dog to protect herself and the comment got removed for “threatening harm to others” until I requested review and told the mods to actually read the damn comment before removing it. It just gets tiring trying to use Reddit at all when there’s a 50/50 chance that anything I do will get removed or hidden from view, sometimes without my knowledge.
it’s kind of been a thing for a while. if you want a freaky reality check about the weird shit they casually do to your accounts, just lurk in one of the r/modhelp adjacent subs for a day. they just casually advise each other how to do stuff that other people on other subs don’t think is real
Ive gotten my 2 accounts gone like this. Reddit fucking sucks
There are a few possibilities.
Shadowbanning is a Reddit feature where you can see your comments, and mods of subreddits you post in can see them, but nobody else. Mods can manually approve it, but usually won’t (in part because they won’t usually even see it unless they happen to stumble across it: it’s not displayed anywhere for them to check). If anyone other than you tries to go to your profile, it will appear as though your account does not exist.
Automod is very popular. It can remove things based on keywords or phrases, based on the age of your account, or based on how much karma your account has. If automod removes something of yours, it is the same as if it was manually removed by a mod. It will be visible to you, but anyone else browsing the thread will just see “[removed]”. However, your account page will still be valid. The redesign might have changed things, but on classic reddit, comments removed by mods or automod will actually still be visible on your user profile, even to other users. There is the option for mods to reply letting you know something was removed and why, but with low karma limits they usually won’t do this, because part of the point is to kerb spam, and letting spammers know they’re not getting through defeats the purpose.
A third option, probably not happening here, is removal by Reddit’s Anti-Evil Operations. This is at least ostensibly manually-reviewed, so if your stuff is removed instantly it’s probably not this. Things removed in this way will not be visible to anyone, not even mods. I believe you’ll receive a message from the admins letting you know, but I’m not sure. AEO has a habit of making really bad calls, like removing obvious jokes or idioms that just happen to contain one or two words that, in isolation, could look like threats.
it’s not displayed anywhere for them to check
According to the post on the shadowban subreddit which explains shadowbans, posts by shadowbanned accounts are sent to the subreddit’s spam queue. If true, that means it IS displayed somewhere, just buried in the actual spam.
Haven’t used it for a while, but Reveddit used to be able to give good info on what stuff of yours might have been shadow-removed, and why.
It happened to me as well. Using reddit behind a VPN seems to trigger that pretty fast. I’d bet if she goes to your profile page ie, u/theNameYouChose) it will say the account is deleted to her, but you can still log in.
They do mention their wife went to their profile to track down the comment and it said it’s removed.
Which to me suggests the wife was able to load their profile, see the comment there, click through to the thread (since comments don’t say they’re removed on the profile) and then didn’t find it there.
Which is why this doesn’t look like a shadowban to me.
If she manually goes to my profile and tracks down the comment all it says is “[Removed]”.
