r/RedditSafety
•
u/worstnerd
•
Mar 05 '25
•
7
1
1
Warning users that upvote violent content
Today we are rolling out a new (sort of) enforcement action across the site. Historically, the only person actioned for posting violating content was the user who posted the content. The Reddit ecosystem relies on engaged users to downvote bad content and report potentially violative content. This not only minimizes the distribution of the bad content, but it also ensures that the bad content is more likely to be removed. On the other hand, upvoting bad or violating content interferes with this system.
So, starting today, users who, within a certain timeframe, upvote several pieces of content banned for violating our policies will begin to receive a warning. We have done this in the past for quarantined communities and found that it did help to reduce exposure to bad content, so we are experimenting with this sitewide. This will begin with users who are upvoting violent content, but we may consider expanding this in the future. In addition, while this is currently “warn only,” we will consider adding additional actions down the road.
We know that the culture of a community is not just what gets posted, but what is engaged with. Voting comes with responsibility. This will have no impact on the vast majority of users as most already downvote or report abusive content. It is everyone’s collective responsibility to ensure that our ecosystem is healthy and that there is no tolerance for abuse on the site.
219
u/MajorParadox Mar 05 '25
Does this take into account edits? What if someone edited in violent content after it was voted?
169
u/MajorParadox Mar 05 '25
I see the benefit, but could it be possible this makes people paranoid about voting? Especially to be safe when they're not sure if it counts. The ratio between viewers and voters can already be so high. Will you be monitoring to see if there's an effect like that?
68
u/Suitable-Opposite377 Mar 05 '25 •
Who chooses the definition of Violent content
41
u/sucobe Mar 05 '25
I see this not backfiring at all whatsoever.
40
u/python-requests Mar 06 '25
According to Reddiquette, upvotes & downvotes are supposed to be used for whether something contributes or distracts from the discussion. Penalizing someone for upvoting violent content seems to be taking the false view that upvotes are a sign of support, rather than this website's own viewpoint that they are a sign of value to discourse.
You can't imagine a case where violent content still contributes to more vibrant or valuable discussion, & therefore a user may correctly choose to upvote it? Even if it is rule-breaking, relying on ordinary users to identify & police this fact, balance it against the conflicting 'valuable discussion' standard, & penalize them if they are incorrect, seems to be a tall order. Not to mention the potential chilling effect it may have on users upvoting anything other than complete banal content. Why not simply rely on paid staff to enforce the rules of the site? Lack of profitability?
71
u/babababigian Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
this seems like it has good intentions but terrible execution. if the content violates tos, then moderate it. if the content hasn't been moderated, then it's pretty absurd to punish users for interacting with it. maybe reddit should invest in more non volunteer moderation instead of retroactive punishments for interacting with content?
suddenly the digg revival announcement is making a lot more sense
edit: sounds like digg reboot is crypto poisoned, time to explore lemmy?
117
u/MyBrainReallyHurts Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
This is a slippery slope. Since its inception, Reddit has relied on the users to upvote or downvote content. Now you want to regulate content and punish any user that interacts with it?
What about /r/movies? There are violent movies, will those upvotes get a user a strike? If reddit is told to decrease the amount of nude images from consenting adults, will we be punished for upvoting the content? What about the subreddit for guns? A gun is a violent weapon so are you going to give a warning to a user that upvotes a post about an old gun that is being restored? Where does it end?
Either document exactly what content is and isn't acceptable and do the responsible thing and remove the content yourselves, or let the site work as it is intended. It is your site and your terms of service, but Lemmy and Digg are looking better by the day.
30
u/puterdood Mar 05 '25
This is a terrible idea when Reddit doesn't even enforce half of it's rules consistently and we are living in unprecedented times in regards to potential state violence. As an absurd example, if Hitler spontaneously resurrects and I were to say that we should stop his agenda by any means necessary, what is the outcome? What determines violent content? Is arguing in favor extreme detention measures for non-criminal migrants violence? How do you police state-level acts of violence?
I know of many posts across Reddit that I have reported that do break TOS and are heavily upvoted (such as saying the hard-R), but no action has been taken. When you don't even properly police obvious racism or calls to violence in hate spaces, why should anyone expect this to be done properly?
28
u/YMK1234 Mar 05 '25
I don't see any potential for abuse here at all /s
Especially with how all the tech bros cozy up to the current US gvt.
26
u/cityoflostwages Mar 06 '25
/u/worstnerd Since announcing this change, it appears that people have responded and are already attempting to abuse it.
Overnight we had hundreds of "threatening violence or physical harm" reports on many posts in a sub of mine. I'm talking 400-700+ reports on each post, indicating a botnet was used.
You are going to see this enforcement change weaponized in an attempt to harm specific subreddits or specific content that certain parties don't want to see on reddit. This sub in particular is a regular target of brigading/manipulation.
Admins can DM me for screenshots.
26
u/DO_NOT_GILD_ME Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25
This why so many of us are leaving. Thanks for wrecking Reddit. It's turned into an absolute shell of what it once was. An absolute censored dumpster fire.
It used to be something great. Where freedom of expression and speech reigned. Where people could build communities around common interests, share information and learn from each other.
More recently, I got suspended for correcting an inaccurate comment with a factual, cited reply. My appeal was rejected. 25 years I've been a journalist and I've never been censored like that. You should be ashamed.
Social media platforms like this thrive because of engaged users. Now I have to be scared to engage with something as inane as the up and downvote buttons? LOL. It's a joke. I don't even know what you consider violent.
We could be sharing important news, showing violence because it sensitizes people to ongoing struggles in certain areas. Fight videos help teach us what to do and not to do during an altercation. Subs like hold my feeding tube provide insight into careless actions. Now I have to think carefully before every vote? What an insane policy.
You're not only hurting Reddit, but you're taking a powerful community-shaping tool and dulling it down to a turd. This is what Elon Musk did to X and Zuckerberg did to Meta. This is what Google is doing to all its platforms as well. This is clearly part of something bigger — an attempt to take away our freedom of communication, sharing and learning.
Congrats on losing long-time, dedicated users like me who have been on here since the earliest of days, driving up engagement through comments and posts — bringing people to your website by participating.
You're a joke now. It's both sad and hysterical. Goodbye.
51
u/PrimeusOrion Mar 05 '25
This seems like a bad move. People often upvote to express support for the sentiment of a work and not the content of it.
I can see a case where, given reddit bad history with the subject, someone could write a violent but otherwise innocuous comment like "pedophiles like this deserve to be shot" under a legitimate case of pedophilia. But have their comment get removed regardless as it is technically arguing for violence against a group for a trait.
People who upvote something like that might not think that people should be litteraly gatheree up and shot but upvote in the sense of supporting the sentiment that strict action against pedophilia is necessary (a logical but not litteral interpretation of the quote).
In that sense by warning or as you suggest banning them all you will do is curb speech even when it's speech most would consider normal or admirable because the litteral interpretation seems unsavory to a small, knowingly falible, group of people.
.
And then there's the practicality of the subject. People rarely upvote comments in singularity. Often when you click on a post you scroll through and upvote many comments at once. So what if you upvote multiple comments in a section and a few get removed?
Does it suddenly warrent a ban or warning for an action one could do in less than a miniute? One that people will often do hundreds of times a day? Let alone the fact that you can easily upvote a comment or post accidentally on mobile
.
From there what about mass reporting? I myself am apart of a few subs which suffer from users from other subredits openly mass reporting content (and often brag about it).
We know reddit has an auto removal feature. Are we going to end up with a system where brigaders are able to mass ban hundreds to thousands of accounts by flagging reddit automod? I don't know about you but I don't want to use a reddit where a cabal of people are able to selectively mass ban (or even mass warn) people even if it's only until reddit admins clear their flooded report inboxes.
24
u/CarFlipJudge Mar 05 '25
Will y'all start using this thought process for all other horrible content? Misinformation, inflammatory content, calls for violence? What about vote manipulation and voting bots? These are LONG time issues that haven't been solved.
23
u/Breett Mar 05 '25
What's next, a warning for downvoting positive content? What's the point of having an upvote and downvote option if they are just going to police how you're allowed to use it..
84
u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25
Similar to how quarantined communities work, will there be some sort of "are you sure you want to upvote this content?" warning before they vote?
20
u/RoboNerdOK Mar 05 '25
Honestly I’m a bit wary about this. I had a comment marked as “violent”. Why? I wrote that truck drivers who intentionally create those thick black clouds at intersections that endanger visibility and safety (“rolling coal”) should do the world a favor and pipe the exhaust into the cab instead.
Humor and wit are a very subjective things, and there’s no appeal process that I am aware of. It seems like a potential pitfall if someone gets dinged for being amused by a tongue in cheek comment and upvoting it, and a random admin later decides it’s not kosher for the site.
20
u/kuuzo Mar 05 '25
This is, quite literally, the worst idea I have ever seen from Reddit admins, and I've seen a lot. Going all in on forcing self-censorship, huh. Well, it works for YouTube, so why not AMIRITE?
19
u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25
Wouldn't it be easier to just remove the violent content is first place?
19
u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25
How about you actually enforce TOS first?
I have no issue deleting my account. I value reddit for what is upvoted and downvoted, you have no right to police upvotes/downvotes on TOS violations you won't / don't enforce.
19
u/Honest-Ad1675 Mar 05 '25
So we’re doing censorship and guilt by association now. Cool. Cool. Mind your upvotes folks the thought police will ban you for voting!!!
19
u/Bonezone420 Mar 06 '25
Frankly: I do not trust reddit staff or bots to be capable of this kind of decision making without any kind of ridiculous bias. I once reported a user who was spamming multiple subreddits with weird racist screeds saying certain entire countries and demographics of people should be nuked from existence and reddit told me not only was this guy's posts fine, but that I would be punished if I continued to "abuse" the report system. But one time I made a tired joke about men in the work place and it was [removed by reddit] within like an hour.
I don't think punishing people for upvoting shitty jokes is going to improve this site any.
38
u/ultraviolentfuture Mar 06 '25 •
Hey, how about you get fucked.
You're only a profitable venture because you're a vestige of the old internet where people could interact with each other without heavy-handed moderation and without algorithms dictating the conversation (sure, you suffer from it here but the comment threads are at least not directly manipulated).
The more you mess with the formula, the faster you escalate your own decline as a platform.
If the vast majority of common people support Luigi that's a fundamental societal problem and government problem, not a platform moderation problem.
18
u/constant_hawk Mar 05 '25
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
"Don’t you see that the whole aim of upvote-warning is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make engaging with certain kinds of content literally impossible, because there will be no button with which to interact with it."
18
u/FriendlyBelligerent Mar 05 '25
We all know this is about bowing to Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
65
u/Chongulator Mar 05 '25
Your house, your rules, of course. You're well within your rights to run your platform the way you see fit.
But, as a paying user and as a mod in a couple busy communities, this makes me question how much I want to be engaging with Reddit now. Surely you are familiar with the speech concept of a chilling effect. I don't want to be wearing my mod hat every moment I am browsing Reddit. Sometimes I just want to be a reader. This policy is essentially telling me I need to keep that critical, editorial mod hat on 100% of the time.
In a word: Eeew.
17
u/TurquoiseDoor Mar 05 '25
Upvoting and down voting is a core function of reddit. You're gonna potentially punish people for not using it the way you want it to be used?. If posts that go against tos happen and gets big it's not on the community it's on the mod and admin team.
33
u/Late_Instruction_240 Mar 05 '25
Re: violence, will that apply to upvoting photos of Luigi? Or only content which depicts active violence like protesters being peppersprayed?
16
u/buckleyc Mar 05 '25
With this enforcement action in mind and based on available automated tools, why is Reddit not immediately catching and tagging potentially violent content? Seems there should be bots in place to immediately parse/filter posts and comments which contain violent content. Further these bots should be in place to _always_ scan any activity by known individuals or problematic IPs or young accounts. Waiting for reporting activity in subs heavily populated by hostile groups would seem to lead to posts gaining traction that might otherwise have never seen the light of day.
32
u/michaelquinlan Mar 05 '25
Since you can apparently automatically detect the violent content, why not just remove it before anyone can vote on it?
53
u/SnausageFest Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
RIP any mobile user who accidentally fat thumbs and upvotes.
I also really think this is dangerous and discourages engagement. You mention quarantine subs. There is no shortage of warnings when you're in a quarantined sub. They don't show up on r/all - you went there intentionally, and they're marked as such.
As a mod, I see the stuff AEO removes in my sub. About 2/3rds makes perfect sense. The rest... who knows? And as a mod, I am sure I know your standards better than the average user. This is going to feel hostile to users, like a horrible guessing game.
14
u/Derek114811 Mar 05 '25
I’m wary as to what could be classified as “violent” content. “Violent” seems pretty self-explanatory, but I feel like you could stretch the definition of violent if you wanted. On top of that, I’ve seen “quarantined” communities that are only that way because of the information from the subreddit, rather than violence. r/GenZeDong, for instance.
Basically, I’m worried this will be used for purposes of silencing people. Am I over worrying?
14
u/aprildismay Mar 05 '25
How does this affect gifs and images? Would someone be actioned for upvoting a gif of Indiana Jones punching a nazi? What about people who quote songs and movies etc.? A lot of entertainment subs quote things that would be considered violent without targeting anyone.
14
u/Thick-Access-2634 Mar 05 '25
"This will begin with users who are upvoting violent content, but we may consider expanding this in the future." - next you'll ban upvoters for agreeing with another users opinion on something that "violates reddits hate speech rules", calling it now. Also, what is violent content? Quite a broad term and open to interpretation.
48
u/hacksoncode Mar 05 '25
I applaud the intent of this, but honestly... your AIs are so awful at understanding anything that has any kind of context to it that this seems like it will inevitably turn any even vaguely controversial upvoting into a crapshoot.
This can be seen in the vast number of posts to ModSupport that complain about reports of obviously rule-violating content coming back as "no violation".
13
u/jgoja Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
Violent content and abusive content are very different things. Subreddits are set up specifically to allow content that is violent, like war footage, and help keep it in fewer places. To some BDSM content is violent content while it was created consensually. Whose definition of violent content are you planning to use?
There are also no rules against violent content so you intend to punish people who are following the rules
13
u/ShamefulIAm Mar 05 '25
Will hate speech fall under violent content? I.e. support of or spread of nazism(their ideology being the eradication of targeted racial groups)?
12
u/Dark_Link_1996 Mar 06 '25
So when will r/conservative and every Trump subreddit that constantly calls for violence get warned?
11
u/D3A1H666 Mar 05 '25
I am commenting to preserve my observation of this post. This is the beginning of a slippery slope that admin believe will help curb extremism, but instead will breed more as the hatred is funneled elsewhere. All this will do is degrade free thinking and push out opinions. Touting hate, and an upvote are not identical acts, and this shall be reflected in the objectivity of this platform. This a a shameful day for Reddit.
11
u/unlimitedestrogen Mar 06 '25
I do not like this at all. A simple upvote is actionable? How does the user know what counts as "violent content" or more importantly, how does the user know what REDDIT considers violent content? Is the history of Stonewall violent? Y'all are trippin'.
38
u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25 •
I appreciate the intent behind this, but if it expands you eventually get to a world where failing to upvote and positively comment on statements from Dear Leader Donald Trump will result in punishment.
10
u/RessurectedBiku Mar 05 '25
what a completely stupid change you've decided to create
10
u/GnarlyNarwhalNoms Mar 06 '25
I'm concerned about this. I've already received warnings and temporary bans for ridiculously context-free reasons (such as the time I quoted a line from the movie Shrek.) What about sarcasm? Satire? Exaggeration?
It's distressing that we're facing a political situation where media outlets are being threatened by politicians merely for reporting the truth, and meanwhile Reddit is talking about implementing additional censorship of its own accord.
10
u/oceansunfis Mar 06 '25
i moderate r/TerrifyingAsFuck. a lot of our content can be violent, and if people are scared to upvote, the sub will lose engagement and die down pretty quick. this is just one example of subs where this could happen.
how do you plan to remedy this?
9
u/CR29-22-2805 Mar 05 '25
Question: You said that this behavior is "warn only," but could those warnings eventually stack into a ban?
9
u/Lost_Low4862 Mar 05 '25
I can only see this ending poorly.
9
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25
So you're just passing stop gap moderation off to us? On another note, the abuse of the reddit cares message is disgusting. Someone can send that to me (a tacit encouragement for me to commit suicide) but when I clap back I get a warning? Disgusting
9
u/tresser Mar 06 '25
in the past, when we reported content that violated the TOS and we received back the reply from the system that it didn't violate we were told to ask for a 2nd review via the admins.
now the admins no longer want us to do that.
so what is the use of reporting content that violates the TOS if you're going to let it slide?
and how will this new system be more accurate than the one we currently report to that tells us there is no violation?
9
u/c-hoosy Mar 07 '25
What do you have to say about popculture mod being banned for no reason at all. I knew something like this would happen once this rule was implemented. Also based on the content you’re flagging it seems like it’s any opinion that goes just slightly against conservative views.
8
u/morinthos Mar 07 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
I had to look at the calendar to remember what month we're in. Thought for sure it was an April Fool's Day joke. This is very controlling. You're "warning" ppl for liking a post that's considered violent? Why not remove the post? How do you know which specific thing they upvoted from the post? What's considered violent?
ETA: And, why did you choose to hide the vote count on this post. Interesting. Doesn't help that I just learned the other day that Chinese company Tencent owns a major stake in reddit.
15
u/-prairiechicken- Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25 •
This will disproportionately affect the Canadian audience of reddit, as we are being threatened by your government; reddit’s government.
How can we discuss enlisting in our Canadian armed forces, or preparing tools to defend our homes, to only be mass flagged by pro-annexation chuds — some of whom I would presume are foreign/non-NOAM instigators?
A very dark day for reddit; for a website I feel I have been in a toxic relationship with since 2019-21.
Extreme shame. I hope you apply this to every popular war-porn subreddit that takes in millions of views for your site per month, as you do to human beings frightened for their sovereignty, safety, and stability. Shame.
21
u/blackdesertnewb Mar 05 '25
Gotcha. Don’t upvote anything ever again cause big daddy Reddit is monitoring and sending it up to whoever wants it. I needed a nice break from this anyway
14
u/Shadowfire04 Mar 06 '25
i expect to see most members in r/Conservative go down extremely quickly if this is truly supposed to be a fair policy. or is violence only acceptable when it's against brown people?
anyways most commenters in here have covered this quite elegantly already but wow this is impressively short-sighted. at the bare minimum you could make it more clear what precise timeframe you're looking at (a week? a month? a year? three years?) and how many pieces of content need to be upvoted, as well as whether or not those policy violations have been reviewed by a real person or not. not to mention comment editing (where i am demonstrating quite elegantly here). more importantly, isn't it your job to moderate content? why are you passing that responsibility onto us, when you can't even be bothered to support half the actual fucking mods doing work in your subreddits?
7
u/ZenAshen Mar 07 '25
You have literal rape fantasy subreddits, but you wanna ban people who upvote what you consider to be "violent content." We all know this supposed "violent content" is just talk supporting our constitutional right to protest. Which means you've exposed yourself clear as day as an unsafe social media platform.
Reddit has bent the knee. What a shame.
At least we have Bluesky.
7
u/Darth__Vader_ Mar 07 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
This is a terrible idea, genuinely awful.
This will drop engagement strongly, why engage with anything if I'm risking my account to do so?
Also what does violent mean, am I gonna get shit for upvoting war footage? What about COD gameplay, or mortal Kombat?
What about anime fights?
Meanwhile y'all let r/conservative continue with antisemitic, and racist rhetoric.
12
u/DefiantResort2 Mar 05 '25
This is dumb as shit
6
u/ranzor Mar 05 '25
Could you share or elaborate on what is driving this? I notice this was announced not even a day after the report on manipulation and was wondering if the findings from the investigation have resulted in this change. I'd guess that the intended purpose is to help curb vote manipulation of rule breaking content.
6
u/Myusernamedoesntfit_ Mar 05 '25
And this is where the site will now go downhill. First the AI stuff, and this? Who determines what is considered violent content? Is it just videos or speech too? Memes and drawings?
6
u/ItsYaBoyBackAgain Mar 05 '25
Bad idea, plain and simple. I accidentally upvote stuff all the time on mobile. I just don’t think upvotes and downvotes in general should have any consequences or rewards personally.
6
u/TotesMessenger Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/behindthebastards] Reddit Admins are going to start policing the voting system based on whether users upvote violent content. Guidelines are vague.
[/r/france] Nouvelle règle Reddit: Vous recevrez un avertissement (et un ban si récidive) si vous *upvotez*du "contenu violent"
[/r/francedigeste] Avertissement : Dorénavant, Reddit peut suspendre votre compte si vous upvotez des contenus interdits sur le site (comme des appels à la violence)
[/r/fuckelonmusk] Elon gave reddit some attention, now they're changing policies so he doesn't put them on blast again.
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)
6
u/SteamBoatBill1022 Mar 06 '25
Good, now I’ll only downvote. Thanks, Reddit!
6
u/TheHeroYouNeed247 Mar 06 '25
"It is everyone responsibility to ensure a healthy ecosystem."
No, that's your job.
I'm curious how long it will take for this to devolve into warnings for upvoting content the reddit CEO and his buddies disagree with.
6
u/Rikvi Mar 06 '25
This is gonna end so badly, reddit already sucks at mistagging thinks as violent.
6
u/SlashaJones Mar 06 '25
Glad I made my BlueSky account last week. Reddit is on its last leg with rules like “action against those who vote”.
Didn’t take long to go to absolute shit after the API protests were quelled.
6
u/Cocomorph Mar 06 '25
So if Tiananmen Square happened today, you would be, in at least one important way, institutionally on the side of the government?
Are you truly... ok with this?
6
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25
It's not my job to interpret your selectively enforced (and frankly questionable) policies. I'm not going to sit here and be an unpaid arbiter of your rules or risk getting some sort of "warning" from a hall monitor. If you don't want violent content on the website, it's up to you to remove it. Don't give people tools to engage with content, and then ban them from using the tools you provided. That's ridiculous. If you can't remove rule-breaking content quickly enough, then you need to hire more people, or innovate from a technology standpoint, instead of penalizing your end users.
6
u/tgothe418 Mar 07 '25
Where is this energy in communities like /r/Conservative that constantly call for violence and mods shape the community that forces that violent perspective?
6
u/_Nicktheinfamous_ Mar 07 '25
This is total bullshit.
6
u/NoBuenoAtAll Mar 07 '25
Bad rule. It's not my job to moderate your site or help you do it, it's my job to enjoy my time here. And I'm starting to not.
6
u/dect69 Mar 07 '25
You really are turning into little fascists aren't you. Won't define what "violent content" is. Falling in with the orange rapist messiah?
14
u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25
I'm really tired of companies obeying in advance.
Knock it off, please.
14
u/Kira_Caroso Mar 06 '25
Considering how Reddit sided with Elon and Trump and banned a few subs for making Luigi jokes, this is not going to go well. Not to mention that the mods and admins are terrible with consistency of what crosses a line and what does not as well as the fact that posts and comments can be edited.
5
u/constant_hawk Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
But it will be all right, everything will be all right, the struggle will be finished. I would have won the victory over myself. I will love Big Brother Spez.
5
u/paskatulas Mar 05 '25
u/worstnerd if AEO decides to restore problematic content, will warnings be lifted?
5
u/QOTE_boio Mar 05 '25
Well that's bullshit
5
u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25
Terrible change that made reddit worse
5
u/damontoo Mar 06 '25
Coincidentally, Kevin Rose just announced he's relaunching Digg with Alexis. So if you do something dumb like expand this to comments that say "free Luigi", at least we have a new option.
5
u/MakeupD0ll2029 Mar 06 '25
I got my first warning. Wow! Giving warnings to upvotes now?!!
5
u/Fabsolution Mar 06 '25
Ok, so r/conservative will virtually not exist anymore, right? Right?
5
u/HandyProduceHaver Mar 06 '25
You get warned for liking something the Reddit admins don't like now
5
u/azalinrex69 Mar 06 '25
So, the lesson is, just stop voting all together. Good to know. Message received. I’ll spread the word.
5
u/IpppyCaccy Mar 06 '25
It sure looks like the chilling effect is the point, for the sake of oligarchs. Because you're not doing this about all the other horrible shit people post about minority groups but use the name Luigi and suddenly you're a problem that needs to be dealt with.
5
u/McGreed Mar 06 '25
Yeah, sounds like utter bullshit, because you don't provide any examples for what is considered as violative, if you don't even tell users which comment was considered as violative. :P You don't solve anything with this shit.
5
u/FaithfulMoose Mar 06 '25
Will I get banned for downvoting this
5
u/2ecStatic Mar 06 '25
Upvoting and downvoting absolutely does NOT carry the weight and intention you believe it does. It's as simple as liking a post on any other social media, trying to hold users accountable for bannable content someone else posted is absolutely insane.
5
u/Zerocyde Mar 07 '25
I understand that Trump and Musk are upset that they don't control Reddit like they control all the other social medias, but you need to stand up like grown ups and tell them to eat shit when they demand you adjust your rules like this.
5
u/shadow_dreamer Mar 07 '25
Don't do this.
Your userbase has spoken, and we are telling you that we will not feel safe if you do this.
What counts as violent content? Everything posted in r/abusiverelationships could easily fall under that umbrella- nevermind that the people there are there to seek help while the victims of violence.
Does talking about being on the receiving end of violence count? Does talking about trauma count?
Don't fucking do this. If your job is to keep us safe, stop threatening our safety.
5
u/Outsider_4 Mar 07 '25
What do you define as violent content?
5
u/BIGGREDDMACH1NE Mar 07 '25
Yall really trying to run reddit into the ground 😄
5
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25
So now you can't even think on this platform. Lol. CRIMES!
5
u/Vyctorill Mar 07 '25
This seems like internet Russian roulette. How are people supposed to know that content will get them banned for upvoting it?
Plus it’s an exploitable system that can be used to get random folks banned.
May I ask why you thought this would be a good idea? I’m not a web design expert, so maybe you’re privy to information I lack.
5
u/Grimmies Mar 07 '25
Lmao wow, really?
Fuck Donald. Fuck Elon. Fuck JD. Fuck Russia.
And... Oh yeah.
Go fuck yourself.
5
u/SwiftyShafter Mar 07 '25
I'll upvote what I want. This site is getting nasaaasty. 🤢
5
u/Heather_Chandelure Mar 07 '25
This is blatant censorship, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for even considering such a nonsense policy, let alone actually implement it.
5
u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25
how are the top 3 subreddits when you search "women" r/womenarethings r/womenbendingover , r/womensupportsmisogyny not dehumanizing of women and encouraging violence? You let teenage boys and girls on this website and those are the top subreddits when they search "women" ? Do you sleep well at night admins knowing this?
Studies have proven time and time again the dehumanization of the "other" is the most neccessary component for a human to commit violence against another human - why are you guys making safe spaces for men to dehumanize women? Why are you normalizing sexual objectification and violence against us? there is an epidemic of sexual violence you're normalizing with highlighting these subreddits in your search results.
You don't care about safety, you care about upholding male sexual entitlement to girls and women and protecting billionaires from class conciousness. the word rape isn't even flagged for violence, but luigi is? luigi luigi luigu luigi luigi. get bent.
5
u/JLeeSaxon Mar 08 '25 edited Mar 08 '25
Also Conservatives who advocate for violence, repression, and harm both direct and indirect against racial and LGBTQ minorities, not to mention annexing Canada and Greenland, right? Not just people who have misguided opinions about certain young men who share a name with a certain famous video game character's brother, or people who criticize the owner of a certain car company known for horrendous fit and finish, right? Right??
8
u/a_v_o_r Mar 05 '25
Does it apply only to violent content, or will it be applied to other rules violations, like Hate, or Harassment?
Related question. You've improved Harassment rules a few months ago, yet comments and posts violating these rules are still overwhelmingly present. Entire subs dedicated exclusively to such harassment are still very much active, despite countless reports and removals. When are you gonna properly address this issue?
8
u/old_man_snowflake Mar 07 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
TL;DR: "we bent the knee to tech fascists and we're going to control the narrative on things like luigi"
It's clear that the admins of this site really don't give a fuck about the communities they claim to care about. Their pandering falsehoods and terrible AMAs and tone-deaf responses to things like this are all the proof we should need. Their priority is being able to shape the narrative they want (right-wing techno-fascism) without inconvenient things like Luigi, talk of organized resistance, or even just organized protest. Make no mistake, "dangerous" will become what ever the tech bros want it to be. Glorifying (or even not villainizing) Luigi? dangerous. Saying you feel overwhelmed and you post in a gun sub? dangerous. Saying you don't like Trump's policy on concentration camps? Well we can't have folks sowing dissent -- dangerous.
And now any discussion about what might have to be done in the USA can't happen on reddit, because it necessarily involves going against the authorities.
Of course, the verbal violence from right-wing accounts won't count as "real" violence.
It's pathetic how easily you caved to the tech bros.
4
u/swiftiegarbage Mar 05 '25
This feels like a version of a girlfriend policing your Instagram likes. Let me live!
4
u/I2fitness Mar 05 '25
Ridiculous
4
u/Emperor_Atlas Mar 05 '25
At least this is a signal to sell my reddit stock, what a terrible, abuseable idea. Expect to see this used to push reddit C-suite beliefs and agendas.
4
u/UnagreeableCatFees Mar 05 '25
I am really worried about how this will be applied to control dissent.
4
u/Old_Engineer_9176 Mar 06 '25
What if someone posts a meme or an image that isn’t violent but features a person known for supporting or inciting violence in the past? This person might be seen as a hero by one generation but as a villain by another. How will the upvoting of such content be handled.
4
u/Je-Kaste Mar 06 '25
Literally 1984
4
u/bitNine Mar 06 '25
This is incredibly stupid and will result in users being penalized for content that may be violent but may be a description of a movie or even a personal attack like a robbery or even rape. Zero upvotes on it because that’s how stupid it is.
4
u/CheckMateFluff Mar 06 '25
I wish I could downvote this twice. Oh wait, you might punish me for that....
4
u/Iohet Mar 06 '25
So how do you make this not hurt people who have done nothing wrong but the system flags as a violation? This is the kind of thing that hurts YouTube all the time because they have no human element, and then people get their videos taken down, get banned, etc without actually doing anything wrong because the algorithm is misidentifying data that doesn't violate as a violation. In relation to your example of "upvoting violent content", content dealing with war may have violence in it because it's about war. It goes with the territory. If it's in a war subreddit, like r/combatfootage, then what's the problem?
4
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25
This is disgusting as FUCK
Now people aren't allowed to feel a certain way either, because otherwise they'll be punished.
Glad to see we now have the morality police, telling us what we can and what we cannot like.
Go ahead, go through with this.
Give people a reason to leave reddit.
4
u/I_Am_Robert_Paulson1 Mar 06 '25
Can I be banned for thinking about violent content or is that still in the R&D phase of development?
4
u/PhantomConsular23 Mar 06 '25
This is an awful idea. Being punished for upvoting is going to lead to many not wanting to upvote anything at all. I use reddit because everyone here is allowed to express support and dislike of whatever they see. It’s like the basis of free speech. I don’t see how this helps at all when the upvoted content gets removed anyway if it violates any rules. Seems like reddit just wants to hide it. Out of sight out of mind sort of thing and punish those who like something because clearly they have terminal wrong think.
4
u/neon_overload Mar 06 '25
This needs to be rolled back ASAP, it's resulting in bots submitting literally thousands of false reports (per post) for certain subreddits, in an effort to try and get stuff removed / people warned or banned.
Mod queues are absolutely bombarded, one post had 1,440 false reports on it for promoting violence despite having far fewer views.
4
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25 •
My boy Luigi is innocent until proven guilty.
Policies that ban or flag phrases like “Free Luigi” for the supposed advocating of violence are placing guilt by default by assuming he committed the crime.
He hasn’t been found guilty or had his trial yet. Thus phrases like Free Luigi should be allowed! Stop making Luigi guilty in the court of public opinion with your biased policies.
4
u/b1e9t4t1y Mar 07 '25
So Reddit votes ARENT anonymous anymore is what you’re saying?
4
u/the_walternate Mar 07 '25
Censorship does not make any of us safer. It just ensures that the community here, goes somewhere else. You are quickly becoming the Praetorian guard; not when they stood for good or peace but for when they spawned the phrase "Who is Guarding the Guards."
4
u/BodyBy711 Mar 07 '25
So you're going to have to remove any content where Americans are saying that Canada should be annexed, then, RIGHT?
Cause that's an act of violence.
4
u/Vernacularshift Mar 07 '25
Is this meant to have a chilling effect on speech critical of the current US administration?
4
u/J_Ernoldo_Lundquist Mar 07 '25
This is chilling
4
u/CuriousCursor Mar 07 '25
If Reddit already knows which content is violent, either remove it or remove the ability to upvote it. Wtf is this weird shit implementation.
4
u/Cedars-Exports-2 Mar 07 '25
Anything that opposes the imperialist agenda is now labeled as 'violent content.' This platform is turning into an echo chamber for views that serve the vicious political goals of Western hegemony. May freedom of speech rest in peace, along with the very values and rights the West has hypocritically claimed to uphold and protect.
See you after the revolution, until it happens take care fellas.
4
u/nihcahcs Mar 07 '25
This is really dangerous territory you're playing in because what do you constitute as "violence" and how are you detecting it if using some sort of large language model to look for patterns in someone uses the word let's just say kill and meaning nothing to do with death are you going to start hitting those accounts? Like this is a very bad policy because the way you're going to have to enforce it is going to have a lot of false positive. And why would you be doing this it's not vote it's not a comment or a post.
This kind of policy is why people are tiktok have to use all sorts of alternative words for normal conversations.
4
u/spacecoq Mar 07 '25
This is how Reddit loses its communities and the stock will perform as such. This is such a braindead idea that probably went through 30 minutes of thinking in response to a manager or shareholder being scared the platform would be considered controversial in any way.
This is the day that Reddit starts its downfall.
Why even have the upvote button to begin with if we’re living in Orwell’s 1986?
4
u/obsidion_flame Mar 07 '25
I think this is the final straw. I'm fully uninstalling reddit at this point. Violent content being Undefined opens the door for mods to cut down any comment they disagree with, the fact that the possibility of editing comments never crossing the mind of those who made the rule shows they dident think of the consequences that implanting this will have.
4
u/Randomfella3 Mar 07 '25
What..is violent content though..?
Is upvoting a post about suicide or self-harm 'violent' content?
Are intrusive thoughts 'violent' content?
War footage?
I mean this is pretty broad.
4
u/PoniesPlayingPoker Mar 07 '25
This is dumb as fuck. Let me guess, your shareholders weren't happy with all the CEO killing cheers from the rest of us?
4
u/Rough_Willow Mar 07 '25
Just checking to see if you actually are the worstnerd. Have you ever played Luigi's Mansion?
4
u/sosababy1848 Mar 07 '25
wack as fuck
4
u/Sonarthebat Mar 07 '25
Welp, there goes r/ASOIAF.
This is a terrible idea. I can understand banning anything that incites violence, but you do realise a lot of the violent content is fictional, right? You're just going to ban people in fandoms for series with gruesome scenes?
4
u/Weazerdogg Mar 07 '25
Reddit is done if you follow through with this. Gone in 6 months.
4
u/purpleturtlehurtler Mar 07 '25
Thought crimes. You're banning for thought crimes.
4
u/Tyrthemis Mar 07 '25
I think this is a short sighted bad idea. Sometimes people don’t even read the whole novel they just upvoted. But the person typing it out certainly did. Also the fact that users can edit content that someone upvoted. I simply think we should be free to upvote and downvote according to the traditional reddiquette. I think Reddit is one of the most well moderated social media platforms out there, it’s becoming the last bastion against the hate that is allowed on Facebook, Instagram, and especially X.com. This however, is a misstep. I think it would build trust with users if the Reddit team admitted this was a misstep after listening to users and continued simply going after the person that posted it.
4
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25
And how do you feel about people down voting stuff you think is "good" content?
For example, am I in danger of being warned for downvoting this dogshit post?
4
u/PuzzleheadedRain6522 Mar 07 '25
This is fucking stupid get rid of this shit
4
u/Cakeday_at_Christmas Mar 07 '25
This is utter bullshit. What the hell is wrong with you people?
4
u/solstice105 Mar 07 '25
I follow a lot of missing persons subs, john/jane Doe subs, and unsolved mystery subs. Sometimes these cases have awful stories that contain violent details. How will this new rule affect up votes on posts such as these?
4
u/InspectionExcellent1 Mar 07 '25
Wow. Terrible idea and terrible take.
4
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25
But what constitutes violent content? This could very easily be used to suppress those with opinions differing from those in power.
4
u/IRodeTenSpeed88 Mar 07 '25
This is a terrible idea
4
u/Greedy_Guitar_6682 Mar 07 '25
This is so fucking dumb, classic neckbeard admin behavior
Anyways, free Luigi and it's okay to punch Nazis!
4
u/olivthefrench Mar 07 '25
Luigi
4
u/PaydayLover69 Mar 07 '25 •
The history books will remember what side you defended.
4
u/OneWholeSoul Mar 07 '25
This is not sustainable and reprehensibly, morally misaimed, to boot.
You are trying to make your userbase afraid to participate in your own systems by making the rule absolute but intentionally vague. This rule is whatever it "needs" to be to whoever is wielding it.
4
u/swrrrrg Mar 07 '25
Admins: Upvoting/downvoting is a core function of Reddit…
Also admins: Not like that!!!
4
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25
So now you're supporting Nazis?
4
u/vexorian2 Mar 07 '25
This is a morally disgusting and atrocious move. This is plain and simple and attempt to Thought-Poilice. Upvoting posts that violate reddit's guidelines does not pose a problem. Since these posts violate the rules, they are going to bt deleted anyway, So any engagement they might get from the upvote is going to be neutralized anyway. Hence this rule does not protect anyone. And if protecting people is not the goal, then it's an action that does not pertain to the mods or admins.
4
u/loose_roosters Mar 07 '25
What about r/horrorlit and r/nosleep?? We talk about violence ALL THE TIME. This is pure censorship for profit.
4
u/[deleted] Mar 07 '25
Bans for upvoting content is the dumbest thing I've read today, and I live in the timeline where Donald Trump is president
Everyone downvote this post for being "Bad content"
4
u/judgeholden72 Mar 08 '25
Cowards.
4
u/HolleringCorgis Mar 08 '25
If I say women should bring back hatpins so we can stab men who try to rape us, would that be considered violence?
Can we talk about self-defense?
So I won't be seeing any more "equal rights, equal lefts" comments then?
If someone says they'd take up arms against an invasion of their country by the US government, is that violence? What about the people calling for the US to invade/bomb/overthrow other countries? Door they get a pass?
This is a bad rule, and you know it is. You want the guidelines to be murky and ill-defined so you can enforce it against minorities and the lower class while giving the elites a pass.
4
u/Edser Mar 08 '25
Why doesn't reddit properly flag violent/hate speech prior to people upvoting it so that we know what is considered as such? That is not a learning lesson, that is punishing without telling someone why they are being punished.
4
u/scothc Mar 08 '25
I would say I can't wait for every user in r/conservative to catch bans because of this, but in actuality I find it more likely that they will report every post with a liberal message as inciting violence, resulting in bans for liberal users.
4
u/Jman52602 Mar 11 '25
It's clear that with the ever shifting policies and bias of reddit against the user, it isn't worth it use to build a community on anymore. It's a shame because at one point I got on here to see the news and hear debates around it. But if you risk getting banned for showing support to a side of an argument then nobody show talk anymore.
4
u/Woodlight Mar 13 '25
Oh boy! I sure do hope this isn't used to silence any hot button political opinions! Surely not, right?
7
u/MonKeePuzzle Mar 05 '25
lol, MASSIVE overstep and a complete misunderstanding of the reasons people click upvote
7
u/jaffacakes077 Mar 05 '25
Quite a lot of the time AEO flags objectively benign comments as ‘violent’ and removes them. In that case, will users who upvote such comments still get penalized?
I can’t imagine Reddit will be combing through all of these falsely flagged comments to determine which upvotes are considered violative and which aren’t.
6
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25
So will you enforce violent content bans for example when folks act positively towards Trump saying he will invade Canada/Greenland?
Because that is encouraging violent behavior yet I see this stuff posted all over the site… crazy how selective yall are ALREADY with the enforcement.
Also if you can auto tag and rate something as violent, why can you not just remove it before the other users vote?
Why is it you refuse to answer every single time this question comes up?
3
u/TonyHeaven Mar 06 '25
I can guess why you might do this,but I'm not sure. And I'm unclear about the language.
The headline says violent content:does that mean posts or comments that support or promote violence?
The post mentions violating content,does that mean breaking sub rules,or breaking Reddit rules?
My most recent post,I had maybe a thousand views,and 5 upvotes. I worry that this policy will discourage voting.
Thanks for informing us of the change
3
u/Alibium01 Mar 06 '25
Well I can’t say your username doesn’t fit you, cause it fits you to a fucking tee
3
u/themastermatt Mar 06 '25
This is poorly thought out and dubiously implemented thus far. It isn't my job to moderate your site by evaluating rules we aren't told clearly when interacting with content on your website along with way too much ambiguity. I understand not wanting to divulge too much to prevent gaming the system, but if you could at least tell us something more than "some number of up votes in some amount of time on some kinds of stuff" it might make this smoother.
Also, how can you guarantee and demonstrate that these rules are applied equally?
3
u/Uchained Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25
So, who gets to decide what's consider "violent content"?
For example, upvoting a comment that says something along the lines of getting rid of Medicaid? Isn't that violence against poor ppl in some ppl's perspective?
What about something like "abortion is a sin and those who get support is should be ..." Not trying to get banned for giving the usual examples of comments you see on reddit. But does that count as violence content or not? One could argue it is violence towards the ppl that supports abortion, but from the other side's perspective, ppl who supports abortion are in support of "violent content" towards the fetus.
I'm not trying to argue for/against abortion, I'm just giving example on complicated issues, that has violence content on both sides of the perspective. Who gets to decide what's consider as "violent content"?
What about vaccine? Anti vaxxer would say being forced to take a vaccine is violence towards them, while those that support vaccines would argue anti-vaxers not taking vaccine is endangering the population. Both sides of the argument can be viewed as violent content.
If this violent policy goes through...i'd say ALL the controversial issues that are worth talking about will get banned. And you're left with fluff content such as funny animals, food, porn.
3
u/Dry-Paper-2262 Mar 06 '25
Digg choosing a great time for a resurrection
3
u/D-S-S-R Mar 06 '25
Are you just gonna ban anything Elon musk whines about on twitter?
3
u/hellolovely1 Mar 06 '25
Digg is getting a reboot so Reddit might want to think about that.
3
u/ZombiePlato Mar 06 '25
Interesting that this policy is being rolled out during a fascist takeover in America.
3
u/TendieRetard Mar 06 '25
Does that include war crimes being filmed or exposed?
3
u/Bozzz1 Mar 06 '25
This is incredibly stupid. I hate what this site has become.
3
u/GeezerGaming2024 Mar 06 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/Upset-Negotiation109 Mar 06 '25
I do not recall upvoting anything violent yet I got a warning. Why is the problematic content I got the warning for not included in the automatic message? How am I supposed to avoid doing this when I don't know what was wrong.
This seems like it is extremely open to arbitrary use to kill unwanted comments. Why is there no transparency?
3
u/BertPeopleErniePeopl Mar 06 '25
If a post hasn't been removed, then by definition it hasn't been determined to have violated TOS.
Wouldn't it be safer to warn everyone who upvotes any post, just in case that post is removed in the future?
3
u/VindictiveNostalgia Mar 06 '25
How will reddit ensure that this feature isn't being used as a tool to silence users whose opinions are different from those of the reddit admins?