Submitted 11 months ago by lemmyingly@lemm.ee to fediverse@lemmy.world
Is there such a thing as shadow banning submissions, comments, or users on Lemmy?
I’m having trouble seeing a couple of comments that I know were there at some points, one of them is my own and I haven’t deleted it. So it got me wondering, is shadow banning a thing here.
One thing I’ve noticed was not getting notifications for bans or comments/posts getting removed
They’re in the modlogs but I never got notifications for the actions
It didn’t matter if it was my home instance or on other instances no notifications were sent to me
So it’s not really shadow banning or shadow removing as it’s all in the open modlogs, but not getting told about it does feel pretty shitty
as how am I expected to shift my behavior if I don’t know I’m fucking up
Or alternatively, know when your submissions/comments are not welcome and you should find an alternative community.
And that’s another good point
A great example is an astrophotography shot I took that I was really proud of that I shared with an astrophotography community around here, it got removed because there was landscape visible in the shot
I only found out about that weeks later when I was looking myself up in the modlogs along with some other entries with my name on them
I understand that on the surface it might seem like a good idea so that mods don’t get harassed by users that they took action against, but in the long term those users will continue to post and comment not knowing that their actions are unwelcome
Defederation will result in an effective shadowban, just due to the way Lemmy is structured. If you yourself can’t one of your own, though, that indicates it was probably removed, which is different from a shadowban.
Standard forum-system here, each community sets its own rules and moderation strictness, so best to read the sidebar before you participate. Some communities are extremely strict, others are extremely loose. Applies to whole Instances too.
Would it show that the comment was deleted on the user side?
I use Sync for Lemmy and there is no indication that it was hidden/removed.
Try going into that specific community, and in the sidebar towards the bottom you’ll find a button for “modlog”. It should have all moderator actions in there, and they usually give a reason for why they did it. Though they don’t actually have to or anything, it’s just up to them.
Also maybe want to check the modlog for the entire Instance, on the Instance sidebar.
I’m not sure if the Signal app has things in different places in their specific UI, incidentally. But there should be sidebars with modlogs somewhere.
I’ve encountered a few times where the post or a parent comment got deleted, which also appears to hide any sub-comments.
Might that be it?
I use Sync for Lemmy. When I click my own comment or the reply from the other person it takes me to the comments section where it only shows the parent comment. Hmmm… Maybe it’s a bug in Sync for Lemmy
Haven’t seen that behavior myself yet, but yes, that does sound like either a bug or shadowbanning.
Excuse me for not being able to help.
I’ve had many comments (and I know a few others have too) quietly deleted for talking about the downsides of Linux, so mild censorship is definitely a thing depending on where you visit. But “shadow banning”, if I’m not mistaken, is kinda nonexistent on a platform like this
a.lemmy.world/lemmy.world/modlog/view?target=1685…
Modlog says you don’t have any moderation actions against you.
Weird, I’m telling ya I’ve had MANY comments disappear
Mods tools on Lemmy are pretty rudimentary. We mods can ban users, ban users for a defined period of time, and or ban user while removing all their content posted to a particular community.
As for posts and comments. We can remove them with or without providing a reason in our logs.
If you’re worried about getting banned or having content removed, you can see all of that in Lemmy’s public mod logs.
I've had this happen, but I found out it is of magazines I had blocked later on, hiding the comments for me.
You can get stuff deleted by mods that don’t tell you about it, but I don’t know about actual shadow banning
Mods can remove post,comments or can ban an account or community without any alert.
Actual banning but the reservation making it weird is also a thing. Example would be us on Kbin. Folks can get banned from a community but if they're on our instance they can still comment and it'll still show up for us.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
Moderation actions are logged in the modlog, but they aren’t sent as notifications to users.
If you find some of your comments disappearing, check your username in the modlogs.
I think this is supposed to reduce the amount of grief that admins/moderators deal with when performing mod actions.
kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
And the mods usually leave a comment so you know why your post/comment was removed or your account banned. It’s a nice system.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
Usually, but not always. Depends on the mod and their mood, of course.
lemmyingly@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Where can modlogs be found?
Personally I dislike shadow banning/hiding/deleting, but I’m never intentionally an ass hole - even though I’m sure there are occasional moments where it comes across that way. I wonder how many people are motivated enough to create new accounts to circumvent bans/content deletion.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
There is a link in the bottom of the sidebar for each community.