[unsupp0rted]

I got banned from /r/CanadaCoronavirus for saying at the time we didn't yet know how many doses and on what schedule of the vaccine would be needed.

Banned. That's anti-vaxx propaganda on my part, evidently.

I messaged the mods to explain that I was triple-vaxxed and what I said was not only factually correct, it wasn't even controversial.

The mods patiently replied that anti-vaxx trolls like me will be reported to reddit to have my entire account banned "for harassment" if I contact them again.

What inward reflection do I need? This is just one of myriad examples with mods who don't actually read or process the content about which they're banning people.

[strunz]

None of that sounds like you were called a "racist transphobe nazi homophobe" like you originally said. Funny how you picked an example of something to frame yourself as correct in the most "scientific" way possible instead.

[unsupp0rted]

I could have added antivaxx or generically “denying The Science” to my list of -ist terms, I suppose.

[btreecat]

That doesn't sound like the full story.

[brightball]

Based on my experience, that probably is the full story.

[unsupp0rted]

What else can I add? You've seen my interactions here.

Does it seem to you like the kind of person you’re interacting with is reasonable here but unreasonable to the point of group toxicity elsewhere? Or that I'm unreasonable here?

[dghlsakjg]

Yes.

Your initial comment here was unsupported by real world examples, and used a lot of rage-bait buzzwords.

When asked to put up a concrete example, no-one called you a fascist/nazi/transphobe in the example. They banned you for, according to you, "just asking questions" on a country specific coronavirus subreddit.

Your tone comes off as "I'm right, they're wrong. I'm the victim here!"

[jboy55]

"Just asking questions" is the biggest red flag of ill intent, its not doubt I would ban someone for resorting to that. Especially if we look at the facts given in the comment.

" saying at the time we didn't yet know how many doses and on what schedule of the vaccine would be needed."

"I messaged the mods to explain that I was triple-vaxxed "

So we can infer from this post that this happened sometime after Aug 2021. So someone went into the Canada Coronavirus group, a group where posts seem to get tens of comments, and brought up completely innocently, "how we don't know how many doses" we need. To make a broader point on what... could it have been, "how we shouldn't have a mandate?"

Perhaps this was closer to Feb/2022 where the Trucker protest was raging across Canada. Of course, the mods may not want a big flamewar over mandates in their group that seems like a niche information aggregation sub.

[mistermann]

> "Just asking questions" is the biggest red flag of ill intent

I consider the playing of the accusation of the JAQ wildcard (an immediate victory in the minds of some subsets of observers) to be a much more dangerous (often literally unrealizeable) cultural norm, it is a go to staple technique in any delusional internet rhetorician's toolkit.

[mynameisvlad]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

It is a well known tactic for ill intent. For a reason. People do it all the time and should be called out for doing so.

[raxxorraxor]

Indeed. Just very practical if you really don't have an answer.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Ill intent to do what?

What exactly would they accomplish if not banned, and were allowed to continue to "ask questions"?

Why should anyone be afraid of them achieving that accomplishment?

[unsupp0rted]

It would be doubly damning if GP hadn't made up the "just asking questions" quote as if I had said or implied it. Or if you hadn't made up the "how we shouldn't have a mandate?" quote as if I had commented in either direction on that.

[jnwatson]

The full story is that this was the 100th similar interaction the mod had that week and they were short on patience.

[josefx]

Got praised on one sub for reporting a bot and banned from another for it (throwing around baseless accusations!!).

Some mods have a hair trigger on that ban hammer.

[spookthesunset]

> That doesn't sound like the full story.

Nope. That is it. Many, many subs would outright ban you if you dared to question the narrative or posted to a "misinformation" subreddit like /r/lockdownskepticism. It was pathetic, honestly. God forbid anybody disagree with what society chose to do with covid....

[mvdtnz]

Same thing was happening in the New Zealand for some time.

[afavour]

Yeah, that example does sound bad. In the ideal world I’d be curious to hear the mod’s perspective: it’s possible to be perceived as a troll even when you’re stating true facts, depending on context and tone.

That’s kind of what I mean about inward reflection. If you find yourself on the receiving end of modding after stating entirely true and relevant facts… yes, maybe the mods are out of control. But maybe the impression you’re giving off while stating truth still leaves a sour taste. If you find yourself fielding accusations of being antivaxx and being racist and being a transphobe, etc etc, all in different subs with different mods then there’s only a few commonalities left. I’m not saying you did deserve any of this, I don’t have the evidence to, just that it’s something worth pondering.

[unsupp0rted]

The commonality could be that I am all those things, or the commonality could be that Reddit is pathologically sensitive to all those things.

My claim is the latter: it's a Reddit auto-immune disease that was hardly present in the early days and is now impossible to miss after years of gradual decline.

[HelloMcFly]

Occam's Razor suggests the former. Here is a perfunctory "I don't know you" - nothing below may be applicable.

There are power-hungry mods, no doubt. They can be politically oriented in either direction, or sometimes just like to be the monarch. But I've been around reddit for over 15 years now, and in my view if you're regularly being accused of being toxic, I'm inclined to believe that you're the cause. And it may not be due to the factual nature of your posts, but the manner in which you share them.

Again, I don't know you, and my experience certainly can't generalize to everyone else. I was a mod for about six months, hated it, but that gave me all the insight I need into how dishonest (or possibly not at all self-aware) people can be when recounting how they were "wronged."

[unsupp0rted]

To me Occam's Razor suggests that any giant social network inevitably declines into group-think and mod fiefdoms, barring an active mitigation strategy.

This is the very basis of why HN rules and moderation are structured the way they are: to actively discourage such an anticipated decline.

If a person seems reasonable and thoughtful on one anonymous forum, Occam's Razor suggests they are similarly thoughtful in another anonymous forum.

[HelloMcFly]

> To me Occam's Razor suggests that any giant social network inevitably declines into group-think and mod fiefdoms, barring an active mitigation strategy.

And I would argue any giant social network also inevitably declines into troll behavior and bad-faith brigading without active mitigation strategies. It is hard to balance these things.

I certainly think "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because I act like one" to be much more plausible than "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because this giant social network has a metaphorical auto-immune disease that results in me experiencing this routinely."

[OGWhales]

> I certainly think "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because I act like one" to be much more plausible than "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because this giant social network has a metaphorical auto-immune disease that results in me experiencing this routinely."

Especially when others participate in that same social network and don't experience that same problem.

The one benefit I could give this person is that they are seeking out subs that have a high likelihood of being ran by highly political moderators and are extrapolating that to the whole of reddit. The same could be true for what kinds of discussions they find themselves participating in. If they are attracted to highly political communities and controversial discussions, they would have a higher likelihood of running into such issues.

[mistermann]

> But I've been around reddit for over 15 years now, and in my view if you're regularly being accused of being toxic, I'm inclined to believe that you're the cause. And it may not be due to the factual nature of your posts, but the manner in which you share them.

Don't forget the sub-perceptual cultural axioms of the era the Event occurred in within Time.