I wake up one morning to find this drivel “stickied” to the top of r/Linux. A post from the moderators stating:
- Readers should stop using social media (such as reddit)
- your usage of social media spreads mis-information even if you don’t share misinformation
The headline alone is confusing for me. I’ve been a Reddit user for 14 years and actually considered it a “news aggregator” rather than social network. I don’t have any friends on the platform, it’s just a good place to see critiques of news stories. In fact if anything it’s THE place to ensure you don’t swallow misinformation.
I’m not on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I stopped using What’s App after Facebook bought it. It’s always interesting for someone on social media to tells others to drop it, but why Reddit allows a moderator to have such an anti-reddit views is a bigger question.
So the author wants to stop people using Reddit, stop people using Social Media and they want to control misinformation. Why then suggest people use decentralised channels to communicate where misinformation is harder to control?
In a moment of not caring I drop this insignificant comment into the chat:
Then I receive my ban
Pathetically authoritarian if you ask me. You do decide what’s appropriate for linux, I just threw out an opinion. Suspecting this was a single mod acting in bad faith I try to appeal my ban but it seems to be the same person
When you ban people for no reason and act like this you embarrass yourself and destroy the community. I think Reddit has a problem with these sorts of moderators who don’t actually contribute to the community, have no investment in a community and rate their own contribution by the number of bans they hand out.
One week later they sticky a “read the rules” post with this gem:
Top violations of this rule are trolling, starting a flamewar, or not “Remembering the human” aka being hostile or incredibly impolite.
I’d classify calling someone “a waste of time” as incredibly impolite. I’m feeling very much like I’m the forgotten human at the end of this ordeal.