Shadow Bans Only Fool Humans, Not Bots
removednews.comThis article claims that Reddit moderators are able to shadowban users. Is that accurate? I'm not finding any evidence to back up that claim.
It was in the official docs:
> Often, it may be advantageous to shadowban a troll or spammer rather than ban them - an actual ban simply tells them that it's time to create a new account. With a shadowban, they don't know they've been banned. [1]
They've since renamed that to a "bot ban", but the effect is the same. Anyway, all comment removals on Reddit are shadow banned by default. You can try it yourself by commenting in r/CantSayAnything [2]. Your comment will be removed, you won't receive any notification, and it will still appear to you as if it's not removed.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/wiki/library?v=acf57c...
With automod rules you can set it up so a user's posts are filtered (hidden for everyone else), and then never review the posts to approve/fully delete them.
It's accurate. Comment shows up to the user, doesn't show up to everyone else. I wrote some code for someone where it alerts them if a comment they post is shadowbanned (compares their comment/post history to what others can see). Might scale it up when time permits with a browser extension.
> a browser extension.
Already exists, but feel free to upgrade or make your own:
Appreciate you!