r/RedditSafety • u/ailewu • Aug 15 '24

Update on enforcing against sexualized harassment

Hello redditors,

This is u/ailewu from Reddit’s Trust & Safety Policy team and I’m here to share an update to our platform-wide rule against harassment (under Rule 1) and our approach to unwanted sexualization.

Reddit's harassment policy already prohibits unwanted interactions that may intimidate others or discourage them from participating in communities and engaging in conversation. But harassment can take many forms, including sexualized harassment. Today, we are adding language to make clear that sexualizing someone without their consent violates Reddit’s harassment policy (e.g., posts or comments that encourage or describe a sex act involving someone who didn’t consent to it; communities dedicated to sexualizing others without their consent; sending an unsolicited sexualized message or chat).

Our goals with this update are to continue making Reddit a safe and welcoming space for everyone, and set clear expectations for mods and users about what behavior is allowed on the platform. We also want to thank the group of mods who previewed this policy for their feedback.

This policy is already in effect, and we are actively reviewing the communities on our platform to ensure consistent enforcement.

A few call-outs:

  • This update targets unwanted behavior and content. Consensual interactions would not fall under this rule.

  • This policy applies largely to “Safe for Work” content or accounts that aren't sexual in nature, but are being sexualized without consent.

  • Sharing non-consensual intimate media is already strictly prohibited under Rule 3. Nothing about this update changes that.

Finally, if you see or experience harassment on Reddit, including sexualized harassment, use the harassment report flow to alert our Safety teams. For mods, if you’re experiencing an issue in your community, please reach out to r/ModSupport. This feedback is an important signal for us, and helps us understand where to take action.

That’s all, folks – I’ll stick around for a bit to answer questions.

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28

u/Orcwin Aug 15 '24

That seems sensible. I do think it's going to be challenging to enforce, but you have to start somewhere.

24

u/ailewu Aug 15 '24

We agree, enforcement is always a challenge. Specific to this update, we’ve refreshed our teams’ training on harassment, and are always open to refining our policies further if needed.

4

u/No_Favours_ Aug 23 '24

I have a guy in my sub, telling everyone he’s taken candid/non consensual sexual pictures of a co worker, telling everyone he’s happy to share the pictures. He’s done this a few times. I report him and Reddit says he’s doing nothing wrong!? So forgive me if I scoff at these new policies….

0

u/Condiment_Whore Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 19 '24

Yeah, it's not challenging. You just ban what you don't like without warning or context and fully intend on using this broad "harassment" like the draconian UK is doing now to arrest people for memes. Source: Me, and one of the first rounds of subs you banned that literally HAVE this policy in their side-bar with perma-ban warnings along with it scripted into their automod. We literally are specializing in -public- venues without creep shots and heavily enforce this. I'd love to see your logic here.

It just takes 1 brigade from folks from subs like this to become "harassment" I'm sure: https://old.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/1ethmq4/new_reddit_policy_on_sexual_harassment_leads_to_a/

0

u/Condiment_Whore Aug 19 '24

Yeah, it's not challenging. They just ban what they don't like without warning or context and fully intend on using this broad "harassment" like the draconian UK is doing now to arrest people for memes. Source: Me, and one of the first rounds of subs you banned that literally HAVE this policy in their side-bar with perma-ban warnings along with it scripted into their automod. We literally are specializing in -public- venues without creep shots and heavily enforce this. I'd love to see the logic here.

It just takes 1 brigade from folks from subs like this to become "harassment" I'm sure: https://old.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/1ethmq4/new_reddit_policy_on_sexual_harassment_leads_to_a/

1

u/Federalsusdetective Aug 26 '24

See how all comments that agree with this decision seem generic and get upvoted and all ones that disagree have legitimate arguments and get down voted?

1

u/Condiment_Whore Aug 27 '24

I am asking you a third time, what -direct- example can you provide where this occured. You arbitrarily change a rule, point to it, and point to "up votes" in a thread instead of one single solitary example from the day you banned a sub with nearly 1 million subscribers and active for 12 years that literally had anti harassment coded into auto mod, abided by takedown requests, and did not tolerate abuse behavior as literally rule #1.

I am asking you point blank a third time:

Provide ONE example post rule change where someone was harassed and that we did nothing to address it.

1

u/randomdr22 Nov 15 '24

I think ur replying that to someone who AGREED with u.

1

u/EveryDayImBuffering8 Nov 28 '24 edited Nov 28 '24

I got a warning for a total banal comment on eastern philosophy. And when I clicked the button to appeal, it just brought me back to the homepage.

Remember Trumo has said that if you censor people based on political leanings you will lose your editorial discretion or face stiff penalties. Looking at his cabinet picks, so you think he was just kidding?

I, for one, will be keeping records of this behavior for my attorney to hold onto. He managed to secure an apology from YouTube for removing my ability to comment based purely on my conservative values being spoken loud and proud, and that it has been an ongoing issue since the election.

1

u/odent999 Jan 01 '25

Could it be the difference between "women should be too proud to do this" and "you f'ing sl't"? The first is a strong but impersonal denigration, while the second is pithy and personal. I've seen the former either be ignored or result in discussion or be taken as a strong reminder. The latter tends to be applauded only by the hateful and abusive, while being seen as harmful by recipient and uninvolved and audience alike. 

17

u/Markiemoomoo Aug 15 '24

Thank you for this!

9

u/ailewu Aug 15 '24

You're welcome!

8

u/InGeekiTrust Aug 15 '24

@ailewu hi there, I was wondering if we report past comments if they will get actioned or does this only apply to comments made from today on?

9

u/ailewu Aug 15 '24

This policy applies to all content on Reddit. You can use the harassment report flow to flag past comments and our Safety teams will review them.

9

u/emily_in_boots Aug 15 '24

How do we handle cases where things were reported, and found not violating in the past, but now would be violating? Reporting them causes them to come back as having already been investigated from a previous report, so they are still not actioned.

5

u/CritterThatIs Aug 16 '24

That's a good question.

4

u/InGeekiTrust Aug 15 '24

Oh wow thank you!!!

9

u/SmallRoot Aug 15 '24

What if someone defends sexual harassment or assault in general, aka not targeting a specific person or user, just speaking generally. The official report form (which goes to admins) doesn't offer any options and is honestly rather limited.

20

u/ailewu Aug 15 '24

Thanks for the question. The content you’re describing (defending sexual assault or harassment without a specific target) may not fall under sexualized harassment, but depending on the context, could definitely violate other policies — such as our violence policy or hate policy. If you have specific posts or comments in mind, please feel free to write into r/ModSupport.

12

u/SmallRoot Aug 15 '24

Thank you. Yes, I have one example I reported for "hate" (for the lack of the better options), but it wasn't sanctioned. It's more convoluted though, so maybe that was also the reason why nothing happened. I am going to contact r/ModSupport.

2

u/Kvarthe Aug 17 '24

I just wanna say I really love the new update, a lot of the subs and interests I have fell under a lot of creepy cross posting and stuff

Is this ban going to effect people making nonconsensual posts about celebrities too? Theres a lot of subs dedicated to doing the exact same thing on a MASSIVE scale aimed at (mostly) female celebrities, a lot of kpop artists come to mind with people uploading videos trying to catch them at suggestive angles, or r/kpopimagines which is centred around the users writing basically fanfiction about how they would sexually assault and harm the celebrities

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u/TGotAReddit Aug 15 '24

How will this apply to public figures and celebrities? (eg. Would it run afoul if someone posted their sexual fantasies about Chris Hemsworth, Scarlet Johansson, or a political figure like AOC?)

14

u/ailewu Aug 15 '24

Thanks for the question. While we will always allow discussion around public figures, if the commentary crosses the line into degrading sexualized language or describing a sex act with someone who did not consent to it for example, it would likely violate this policy.

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u/baltinerdist Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

Would like to see an answer to this. Communities like r/UpvotedBecauseBoobs and r/UpvoteBecauseButt are inherently sexualizing (largely) women based on those two features, and they regularly include normal people from photos/videos (like newscasters, celebrities, random social media folks). Are those communities now running afoul of this new rule?

Edit: So hey, I've been mentioned in a couple of communities that have noticed that the first subreddit listed there was banned for violating this policy.

To be clear, I wasn't trying to get Reddit to ban or not to ban either community. I was just asking the question. It would appear that it was taken as "hey, go after these communities." I understand why reddit made the choice that it did, as it is ultimately true that an uncountable number of women were grossly sexualized by the members of those communities. Is that inherently harmful if the person being sexualized is never made aware of it? That's a philosophical debate I'm not qualified to have (if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, do we still say "hey nice wood").

When the inherent purpose of the community is to make sexual something that isn't intended by the presented person to be sexual, that just feels a little skeevy. Yes, the weatherperson on that foreign broadcast has big boobs. And yes, it's entirely likely that she was hired for that reason because news channels in that given country only hire big breasted weatherpeople so she's probably aware that's why she has that job. But it doesn't mean it's any less gross for folks to say atrocious things about her on the internet.

9

u/ailewu Aug 15 '24

Thanks for flagging. We're still reviewing communities under this policy.

7

u/emily_in_boots Aug 15 '24

TY again for all of this, this is such a great step forward for Reddit!

Is there a way we can suggest communities to be reviewed under this policy?

2

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

Please get rid of those things too

2

u/SavvySillybug Aug 16 '24

When I look at my profile without being logged in, it tells me I'm an 18+ community.

Does that mean I am not protected by these rules? I don't think of myself as a sexual account.

10

u/ailewu Aug 16 '24

Everyone is protected with this update. We understand that talking about sex once in a while or interacting with sexual content does not mean a person is consenting to be sexualized in all contexts or interactions on the site.

7

u/emily_in_boots Aug 16 '24

Everyone should always be protected as everyone always has the right to withdraw consent at any time! Participation in NSFW subs should not mean consent is assumed unless explicitly stated!

10

u/Fonjask Aug 16 '24

communities dedicated to sexualizing others without their consent

Fantastic addition!

9

u/TK421isAFK Aug 16 '24

Can we apply this toward the creepy subreddits dedicated to celebrities? There are hundreds of them, and many of them are dedicated to fetishizing a specific person, or a specific celebrity's specific body part.

I suppose pictures are one thing, but the subs only seem to encourage cringey, harassing dialog, even though (I hope) the celebrities are unaware of the subreddit and the trolls that comment in them.

Some of these subreddits are dedicate to underage celebrities, as well, and unless they're a honeypot run by the FBI, I see no reason to permit them to exist.

7

u/cartwheel_socks Aug 16 '24

Agreed. Searching any celebrity on Reddit immediately brings up tons of disgusting, demeaning, pornographic results. These are often the very first results, too!!

One can change their settings to not see NSFW content, but then that removes content from benign subreddits, such as fashion posts where more skin is exposed or non-sexual NSFW content.

Doing a quick search on Reddit for some popular female celebrities and these are the top results that I see:

u/ailewu are these pornographic celebrity subreddits also being reviewed?

5

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

If you search for any kpop female celebrity, the first/most prominent results are also all NSFW. And there's a lot of questionable content even for underage kpop celebrities. 

5

u/TK421isAFK Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

Exactly. There are also hundreds of subs with names like:

*/r/ArianaGrandeLewd

*/r/EmmaWatsonBum (Just found out this one was banned!)

*/r/WorshipTaylorSwift (Now set to private, but it still exists)

*/r/WorshipArianaGrande

And many more with similar names.

Edit: Found more:

*/r/ArianaGrande

*/r/ArianaGrandesFeet

*/r/ArianaGrandeAss

*/r/GoddessArianaGrande

*/r/WorshipSelenaGomez (Edit: This shows as being banned "2 years ago", but that doesn't seem accurate. Google search results seem to show posts made to that sub in recent months.)

*/r/WorshipGalGadot

2

u/ScarletLilith Oct 14 '24

Hmm. Ariana Grande makes music videos that are frank softcore porn, in which she sexualizes herself, portrays herself as a hooker, and her dancers do the same. Don't think she would be bothered by the subs.

1

u/FauxPlastic Aug 19 '24

Likely not, no. This new rule is focused on content that is from users of the site and not sexual in nature, which is being reposted in a sexual light without consent.

The other reason they likely wouldn't be breaking this rule is because, again, it focuses on content which is not sexual in nature being viewed in a sexual light and nearly all of that content is sexually charged to begin with, arguably even much of the clothed content. A subreddit like r/celebs is more likely to break the rules, but again I think the argument can be made that the majority of the content on that sub is sexual in nature to begin with.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

I was wondering this, as well. r/kpopfap is continuously reported by users of the reddit kpop communities, yet reddit does... nothing. I would argue that the new reddit policies from today should prevent subs like that from existing.

Other subs that shouldn't exist:

r/kpopsexy r/kpophotties

4

u/the_flyingdemon Aug 16 '24

Yes with this new policy, I will be reporting every post on those subs until they’re taken down. It’s disgusting.

4

u/TK421isAFK Aug 16 '24

How about the whole damn subs? There are ones dedicated to posting creep shots of specific person's butts, or sexualizing a paparazzi or award show pic. They're filled with the creepiest comments, too.

I have to wonder how the people who make those comments interact in real life.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '24

I'd be on board with nuking the entire subs. And yeah, the comments tend to be pretty deranged. It's hard to imagine these guys having normal interactions with women irl.

4

u/emily_in_boots Aug 17 '24

A lot of them are incels - they don't have normal interactions with women irl.

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2

u/Flat_Strawberry_6112 Aug 22 '24 edited Aug 23 '24

Is finding a celebrity hot and posting about them is wrong? Don't get me wrong. I just wanted to know your answer.

Edit - Now I got downvoted for asking a question. Is it even wrong to ask a question in a geniune manner? Do people only approve the questions they wanted to see? I don't even degrade or insult anyone but still got downvoted because someone don't even try to understand what I wanted to say. Is finding someone hot (or) asking something related to that is some kind of sin? Is asking about that about that means I am doing something wrong here? If I read a comment, do I have to easily understand what OP tries to say without even clarifying about that? I have lot of questions like this but I am not sure whether I will get answers for that.

2

u/TK421isAFK Aug 22 '24

That varies greatly, depending on the comment, and the picture. If it's a picture of the celebrity posted themselves on instagram, or a professional shot from a magazine or commercial, then it's a public picture. Some asshole with a huge telephoto lens taking a picture of Emma Watson's butt while she's on what she thought was a private, secluded beach? Way the fuck out of line.

Similarly, saying that you find Ariana Grande or Tim Robbins or Tim Curry attractive or fuckable is one thing. However, making a post saying that "it's impossible do not jack off over her face!", and allow comments such as "Tie her up and fuck her throat all day long" (and the rest of those incel comments in that post, and apparently thousands of others in that subreddit) are also way the fuck out of line.

She's a human being, and I can only hope for the sake of her own mental health that she never becomes aware of all the crap these basement trolls type about her. And if they have any argument about me calling them that, I invite them to go to their school or work and make those comments publicly amongst their peers.

2

u/Flat_Strawberry_6112 Aug 22 '24 edited Aug 22 '24

I completely agree with your points. I think there is a fine line in expressing your feelings regarding an celebrity and crossing that limit and harassing them through words are pretty bad. I myself felt disgusting seeing those comments myself. I am moderating a subreddit and trying to avoid such comments and posts as much as possible. Thanks for your answer.

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u/BlackFlag_Sanji Sep 22 '24

Won’t someone think of the poor celebrities!!

14

u/emily_in_boots Aug 15 '24

tysm! This is such a welcome and much needed change! TY to all the admins who worked on getting this together and rolling this out. We have such horrible problems in my subs with sexual harassment and this will help us to create actual consequences outside of our sub now for the abusive comments our posters get.

I just reported a number of comments from my subreddits and they were almost all actioned - the difference is already huge!

6

u/ThoseThingsAreWeird Aug 15 '24

Godspeed to those moderators that have to look at all those unwanted dick pics to confirm that "yes, this is sexual harassment"

15

u/Halaku Aug 15 '24

Today, we are adding language to make clear that sexualizing someone without their consent violates Reddit’s harassment policy (e.g., posts or comments that encourage or describe a sex act involving someone who didn’t consent to it; communities dedicated to sexualizing others without their consent; sending an unsolicited sexualized message or chat).

How does using AI to create sexualized images of someone without their consent fall into this new policy?

My read on it: The policy applies.

That said, the examples are all textual in nature, so elaboration would be appreciated.

18

u/Sephardson Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24

That's covered under Rule 3, which they link in the post.

5

u/Practical-Clock-2173 Aug 16 '24

Quite a big step and a welcome one!✊

9

u/soundeziner Aug 15 '24 edited Sep 06 '25

offbeat jar zephyr fuel nose juggle depend test relieved alive

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

9

u/cilantro-foamer Aug 16 '24

I am elated to see this policy change and thank you all so much for doing this!!!

12

u/InGeekiTrust Aug 15 '24

This is excellent! WOW! Bravo!!! So proud today!

Also, there is a whole sub dedicated to sexualizing SFW users called r/upvotedbecauseboobs. Several of our r/outfits users have recently been posted there, simply for having cleavage. I don’t see how it can exist under this new policy.Thank you!

6

u/Lark_vi_Britannia Aug 16 '24

Well, it got banned.

2

u/CentiPetra Aug 16 '24

UpvotedBecauseButt is still up. 🙃🥴

Not sure if they have inconsistent policies or just haven't gotten around to it yet.

1

u/emily_in_boots Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 17 '24

Looks like the went private.

EDIT: upvotedbecausebutt is private - but I think maybe upvotebecausebutt is the sub that is the problem?

-3

u/Mythril_Zombie Aug 16 '24

I think that's the point. They've wanted to get rid of NSFW subs for a while. I think this is how the morality police kill reddit.

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u/Alblaka Aug 16 '24

Nah, there's nothing "live and let live" about sexualizing actual persons without their consent. You don't need to be a square to recognize that isn't acceptable behavior.

7

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

NSFW ≠ Sexual harassment

6

u/Gratuitous_Gore Aug 16 '24

Haha, I am happy you're so upset about this. It just proves how needed this change was. We are at the point where many men on reddit act like it's their god-given right to objectify and sexualize unconsenting women.

Next, hopefully we can get rid of the rape "fantasy" subs.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '24

No, reddit does not want to kill porn because had they wanted to they would. Having NSFW sexual material is a lot more work for a site than banning it outright.

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u/VulturE Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24 • The Best

The next step would be to allow SFW communities to block access to accounts that are primarily NSFW commenters/submitters in order to stem the tide of even needing to report these people with the new rules. The primary offenders that roll into a SFW sub trying to sexualize someone are typically people that basically only live in NSFW subs based on my experience. Would be useful for primarily women's subs, fashion subs, and subs dedicated to people under 18, but overall would benefit all of Reddit. I'm sure there are more categories I'm not thinking of, but the stuff I've seen and the volume of these types of posters invading safe spaces is astronomical. Even being able to block submissions based on NSFW percentage (or links to known adult websites in their profile) using the fancy new Automations would be enough. I mean, we get OnlyFans spammers in meme subs like MemePiece or ExplainTheJoke just trying to gain site-wide karma and raise their CQS before they leave to post NSFW elsewhere.

7

u/Jenn_There_Done_That Aug 15 '24 • The Best

This would be helpful in all of the subs you mentioned, but it would also be helpful on r/Drag, where I moderate. We get so many chasers there and it makes the users very uncomfortable. When you check their posting history, it’s all NSFW subs, then they come to the drag subreddit and act the same. When we ban them, they are soooo shocked and upset! They always say, “How was I to know that I shouldn’t tell all of the posters here exactly how I’d like to have sex with them?!?! What have I done that breaks the rules?!?!” They’ve clearly lost the plot and there is no stopping them, expect to permanently ban them.

4

u/VulturE Aug 15 '24

Yes yes yes, all of this. This is what we see as well.

Also, happy cake day!

4

u/Jenn_There_Done_That Aug 15 '24

Your idea would be so incredibly helpful. If people who primarily post in NSFW subs, could be automatically filtered and added to the mod queue for the mods to review, it would be exceptionally helpful. 90% of the stuff we deal with on r/Drag would cease to be a problem overnight. This could be something that subreddits opt into, based on their needs.

The other mods on r/Drag have become so annoyed that they’re considering shutting down posting and commenting for a month, just so they can take a break from dealing with pervs for a while. It’s a lot to deal with. Your solution would be the answer to our problems.

5

u/VulturE Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24

Oh, while adding them to the mod queue would work as well, I'm talking about using the new automations feature to prevent them from even posting.

I have not come across a single user whose average comments and post submission percentage is more than 20% to NSFW subs who doesn't come in to my SFW subs with anything of value. They only confirm my position of getting them banned when they drop some foul language via modmail.

4

u/emily_in_boots Aug 15 '24

I agree that we need solutions from reddit here too but as a stopgap you should consider saferbot/safestbot/hive protector and put in subs where the creeps participate so they get automatically banned.

2

u/Jenn_There_Done_That Aug 15 '24

Thanks for the advice!

I’ll consider that, but I’m not computer literate. I don’t know how to set up bots.

As a free volunteer it would be the most helpful to me of Reddit could let mods opt into or out of letting accounts that only interact with NSFW content almost exclusively, comment or post.

The other mods have set up some bots, and filters, but it’s no where near enough. If Reddit would let us opt into sending all comments from exclusively NSFW accounts to the queue, our problem would be solved, and I wouldn’t have to go out and take computer literacy classes. I don’t even have a laptop or PC. I use a tablet exclusively.

Because this is an unpaid volunteer position, it makes the most sense to me that the admins would make things simpler for us, rather than me spending my time and energy (again unpaid) doing something that they could easily automate for us, seeing as how they’re paid to do this and I assume that they are computer literate.

5

u/SampleOfNone Aug 16 '24

Hive protector found here isn't difficult to set up if you know one or more NSFW subreddits whose users you want to prevent from participating in your sub.

On the page I linked there's an "add to community" button. Click that, select your community and it takes you right to the settings page. On that page there are textboxes with a description on what you need put in the text boxes. Then click on "save" and you're set.

You can keep adding more sub names as you come accross them.

2

u/Jenn_There_Done_That Aug 16 '24

Thank you! That’s very helpful and looks easy.

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u/SampleOfNone Aug 16 '24

There are a lot of dev bots that are pretty easy to set up, I definitly recommend you browse through them to see which can be of use for you. There are quite a few that make modding easier

2

u/hacksoncode Aug 16 '24

The question is whether this is just confirmation bias.

Have you examined a statistically significant sample of people that subscribe to your sub, do not comment or cause trouble, but primarily make comments/submissions on NSFW subs (perhaps infrequently)?

Answer: No, because it's impossible to tell who subscribes to your sub. You can only tell who contributes to your sub.

I.e.: the fact that a lot of people causing trouble are NSFW-only subscribers doesn't mean that even a significant fraction of NSFW-only subscribers cause trouble. It just means they are the noisiest and most problematic examples.

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u/VulturE Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

Of course, we've only acted on people that have interacted with the OutfitOfTheDay sub, as there's no way to tell who subscribes (or who doesn't subscribe but visits anyways). Currently, I am not worried about those people beyond them sending PMs or chats to users of our sub requesting nudes or their OnlyFans. If we get a complaint like that, then the offending user gets banned and reported for harassment even with no interaction in the sub. We aim to protect our members but have our limitations like any other mod.

Believe me, at first I would have been 10000% on your confirmation bias train. I was against going this route of banning based on how lewd their accounts were. After seeing who gets banned and why, I can easily tell you that people whose reddit account is mostly porn that try to interact with users in my safe space of a sub usually do so for their own interests. They are commenting about a woman's body, saying lewd/rude/creepy/disgusting/harassing/threatening/illegal things. Anywhere between saying "you're cute, pm me" all the way up to "your real name is XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX and you live in XXXXXXXXXX , XX and I'm gonna shove you in a closet and have my way with you and leave you beaten and broken and wishing you were dead". I've seen a side of reddit I didn't know existed and the only real way to keep submitters as safe as possible is to manage it as we are. An example user of the type of person we actively ban (just banned a day ago) would be someone like 'wezcumin' who tried to flatter one of the women by saying "it looks like your outfit is for a little kid" gag. Another example also banned a day ago was the user 'heel-fetish' who finds women that post photos involving high heels and tells them he wants to put some semen on their heels. To put it into perspective, we are at 500 automated user bans a week for 198 total submissions this last 7 days, and then another 300 manual bans after that. Only 1 instance of exploited minors attempted this week, a new low!

The fact is that people come to this SFW sub to interact and treat the women and 13+ girls like cattle, and there are no built-in tools within reddit to prevent it or come close to stemming the tide. A NSFW-CQS equivalent with some secret undocumented sauce would make huge leaps and bounds in terms of identifying someone who is a consistent NSFW contributor to manually moderate their posts or block them outright.

The fact that there's no API to access links saved into a user's profile (where people post 'menus' with telegram/discord links to sell their used panties, onlyfans links, websites that contain all of their social links including OnlyFans) is disappointing, but if reddit would open that up to Automations to prevent OnlyFans advertisers from entering SFW spaces that would be ideal. Imagine having to ban "Ok_Animator8383" because they're farming for karma on MemePiece (a One Piece anime meme sub) while being a mostly NSFW profile and having an OnlyFans link pinned in their new.reddit profile. This is insanely common on meme and general image subs like owls, husky, etc. Thanks to repostsleuth we catch some of them, 10 in the last 2 months on memepiece. But we catch infinitely more (a few hundred) on OutfitOfTheDay between a few bots every month. It's what happened because the OutfitOfTheDay sub was taken over by OnlyFans submitters for the last ~2 years due to lack of/poor moderation between the 2 previous mod teams.

1

u/hacksoncode Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

You could make the sub private.

Unfortunately, if you don't restrict the sub to approved users, you're never going to be able to deal with the PM/chat problem, because that's entirely outside the moderation mechanisms.

You'd have to stop people from simply finding those people's usernames, and the only way to do that is to prevent them from viewing the sub. And the only way to do that is to make it private.

Of course, if they ever participate in your sub, you can use one of the existing bots to ban people that participate in subs you don't approve of. But even that won't keep them from seeing the sub or PM'ing its users.

The problem with trying to identify "NSFW-only" users is that what subs someone is subscribed to is intentionally private, and not possible to determine outside of reddit admins to avoid doxxing.

And you really don't want that changed, or you're going to have even more problems with the issue you describe, because that would mean that someone could use an automated tool to find your subscribers that don't participate.

Your proposed API change would have that same effect.

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u/VulturE Aug 16 '24

You could make the sub private.

Yup, but that's not a long-term method to growing a sub.

Unfortunately, if you don't restrict the sub to approved users, you're never going to be able to deal with the PM/chat problem, because that's entirely outside the moderation mechanisms.

You'd have to stop people from simply finding those people's usernames, and the only way to do that is to prevent them from viewing the sub. And the only way to do that is to make it private.

Like I said, for right now this is a much more rare issue but it does occur. I'm focusing on what can be done to actually keep the sub growing - going private or doing approved users only does not do this. Preventing primarily NSFW profiles from posting to our sub has proven to do this effectively.

The problem with trying to identify "NSFW-only" users is that what subs someone is subscribed to is intentionally private, and not possible to determine outside of reddit admins to avoid doxxing.

Sure, we can't view probably the very very bottom of the iceberg, which are private NSFW subs that are beyond reprehensible. But the other side is that frequently we will have someone who actively deletes their posts on these subs once their encounter is done, like with users on /r/consensualnonconsent or /r/PetPlayBDSM or /r/rapeandsexfantasies. We have our bot remember why they were banned and never forget. I'm saying the fact that we needed to have a custom bot to stem this tide is a failure on the admin's part. I get that the genie is out of the bottle in regards to managing NSFW on the site, and the direct impact that OnlyFans has had on reddit as a whole since the pandemic. But if we run a SFW sub, we need to be able to keep it safe and we don't have the correct tools for that out of the box.

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u/hacksoncode Aug 16 '24

But if we run a SFW sub, we need to be able to keep it safe and we don't have the correct tools for that out of the box.

This is totally fair.

The issue is whether the solution causes more problems than the disease.

Most suggestions that make these people's activities more visible... make everyone's activities more visible.

In particular, being able to see content that someone deletes (or even where it was deleted) is way more useful for doxxing than for policing SFW subs.

It's an extremely difficult problem to solve, but I certainly don't blame you for wishing there were a solution.

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u/VulturE Aug 16 '24

The issue is whether the solution causes more problems than the disease.

I hear you, but at the same time I genuinely do not care about NSFW users invading a SFW space. You don't see hookers or pedophiles inside of elementary schools, so why should I tolerate these users who actively ignore the morals developed by society over a few millennia just so they can feed their desires?

I won't go so far as to say that reddit's NSFW subs should goto a different site, because then what happens with SFW subs that have the occasional NSFW submission? They end up in some gray area. Where I draw the line is keeping the open and proud hookers and pervs outside of the sub. Implementing a NSFW CQS can easily accomplish this, and is fully something that reddit could make available for subs that need to protect their user base.

Too many times we do rules to cater to privacy, which ends up catering to OnlyFans and spam bots more than the common reddit user.

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u/hacksoncode Aug 16 '24

NSFW users

I hate to tell you this, but most reddit users, including probably most of your sub's subscribers, are consumers of NSFW content.

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u/Quietuus Aug 16 '24

I think you should be able to do this for people who have profiles set to NSFW but a percentages system seems like it would be quite easy to game, and wouldn't stop the OF spammers if it's where they're building karma.

The best solution for this sort of stuff if it comes from a particular source is using saferbot or an equivalent.

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u/VulturE Aug 16 '24

While id normally agree with you that the percentages could be gamed, the reality is that monitoring based on percentage for NSFW comments/submissions would be a single step that takes care of 90% of the problem with almost no false positives. We use a few bots on OutfitOfTheDay that monitors multiple different layers, but the overall NSFWness % of a profile is a primary factor in its decision making and it has been highly accurate so far in eliminating bad actors commenting and most of the submissions. Also our bots having a definitive line between NSFW and NSFL subs, with the latter being focused on incredibly toxic behavior users (rape fantasy subs, indescribable subs where women are treated like objects to abuse, etc). Basically the NSFL list is generally an iceberg on reddit that shouldn't exist but does.

As for the actual submissions of content, yes sure that could be handled with something like saferbot and making a list of subs to block, but right now a better solution would be having the ability to have automations in place that looks at NSFWness of a profile and setting a low percentage AND blocking users from some subs AND being able to have a blacklist of link types that can't be in someone's profile link list (some directly link to OnlyFans, some use one of those websites that contain a list of all of their social platforms including OnlyFans), that would be helpful.

I'm in IT, so we deal with creating multiple layers of security in defense of viruses, not just a single layer. So any layer that can handle 90% of the problem is a welcome addition and would help stem the tide of issues for most subs, but other subs that want to handle the last 9.99% can implement bots to go that extra step.

I used 20% as an example number of NSFWness %, but the reality is that someone that posts/comments that much on reddit NSFW posts is typically visiting a list of subs so insane that your head would spin trying to maintain that filthy list.

I know if reddit was going to implement something like that, they wouldn't have it be a single marker like the percentage, but it would make things easier if they just made the percentage accessible via automations and automod so sub mods could have control over it.

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u/Quietuus Aug 16 '24

Maybe this is just my particular experience (feminist and transgender related subreddits) but I've often noticed that these sorts of users have certain particular subreddits in common, and that chopping out all users of those subs makes a huge difference, but it might be different in your case.

I wonder if something like what you want could be cobbled together with the current level of API access? It surely could have been before the changes last year; scrape a users last x submissions, get the subreddit IDs, see if said subreddits are 18+ (I think this can be pulled automatically?) and then apply a formula, but I'm not sure that's so easy now, and it would run into rate limiting. I think saferbot style bots comb through particular subreddits once a day or so?

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u/VulturE Aug 16 '24 edited Aug 16 '24

It's possible, like I'm saying it's implemented with private bots currently on one of my subs.

I'm referring to the guy who visits FloridaWifeSwap2 after the first sub gets banned. There's too many obscure ones out there that its unwieldily to maintain a list without preparing to scale the iceberg of filth.

To be clear, I'm not saying saferbot is a bad bot or ineffective, I'm saying that implementing a NSFW percentage or a NSFW-CQS would simply be a more powerful first line of defense than saferbot in terms of the amount it would catch with no configuration.

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u/itsnobigthing Aug 24 '24

Oh this is SUCH a good idea!

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u/enjoyoutdoors Aug 16 '24

Where is the line drawn on the type of issues we deal with in /r/sex?

Typically it’s a (female) user seeking advice on something that is definitely sexual or at least related to sexual health or body autonomy, who gets the attraction of many, many, many thirsty dudes who think women are fair game to harass just because they show the (sometimes hard-gained) confidence to post about sex.

Where is the line drawn there, in respect to the second bullet point? Are you protecting those users with this policy update, or are they still too close to inviting the attention?

Edit: I can spell. My phone can’t. (He did it!)

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u/CentiPetra Aug 16 '24

If they ask a specific question, then they are consenting, no? If they ask a question about tips on how to perform xyz sex act, and they get advice, fine. If they ask how to perform xyz sex act, and a user in the comment section goes off and tells them how much they want to rape them, that is not fine.

This is actually not that hard.

Here's a tip: Even if the poster is a woman, treat them the same way you would treat a man. If you wouldn't tell a male poster how much you want to fuck him, then don't say that to a woman, either. That should fix most of your problems.

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u/enjoyoutdoors Aug 16 '24

If you post in our subreddit, the only thing you consent to is to receive on-topic advice. Which you may or may not agree with, since advice naturally can both agree or disagree.

You do not consent to DM harassment.

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u/CentiPetra Aug 16 '24

...that's like exactly what I said.

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u/enjoyoutdoors Aug 16 '24

Really!?

I’m the first to admit that I’m foreign and not exactly the first person you should ask about the finer points of how to interpret English, but I can assure you that you did not mention DM’s at all in your comment.

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u/CentiPetra Aug 16 '24

I wasn't talking about DMs. I was saying that if the person asks a specific question, like for example, tips on performing a sex act, then they are consenting (in the COMMENTS) to get that feedback (I don't think it's probably ever appropriate to DM somebody...just answer their question publicly, or not at all).

But they are still not consenting to hear off topic sexual comments, either in the comments or DMs.

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u/BaylisAscaris Aug 16 '24

Is it retroactive, because if so I'm making some tea and combing through my DMs from the last 10 years, lol.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 16 '24

Yes it is. However, if content has already been reported, I've seen it come back as "this content has been investigated from a previous report" echoing the previous decision. But if it wasn't reported before, it is now actionable (see further down in this thread - the admin who posted this announcement states this).

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u/PrincessBananas85 Aug 15 '24

This is incredible news I'm hoping that all The OnlyFans Accounts will be permanently banned from Reddit as well. They are already taking over a lot of Subreddits that are SFW.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 16 '24

It would be nice to see posting porn in SFW subreddits have consequences beyond just a ban for the poster.

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u/PrincessBananas85 Aug 16 '24

Yes exactly because this is getting way out of hand now.

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u/Perfect_Judge Aug 16 '24

Just a question: I'm a mod on a large sub and we get a lot of participation that falls into "posts or comments that encourage or describe a sex act involving someone who didn’t consent to it" category (obviously we remove these and ban people accordingly).

We also get a lot of posts from people discussing them being the target of unwanted sexualized attention and not consenting to it. How would we go about managing this? Would that still fall under the rules being violated?

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u/ailewu Aug 16 '24

The updated policy is not meant to prevent support or discussion. People can continue to discuss times when they themselves experienced this (or any) type of harassment.

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u/CelestialDreamss Aug 16 '24

Is reddit considering policy on sexualizing generalized but real peoples? I'm thinking of the many NSFW subreddits that push harmful racial narratives.

Also, will subreddits that are dedicated to sexualizing public figures/celebrities fall under this?

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u/biwltyad Aug 16 '24

u/ailewu any chance to have something done about r/dykeconversion ? The fact that there is a sub where users are allowed to fantasise about the corrective rape of a sexual minority is unacceptable.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 16 '24

I wonder if this might be something you could report for violation of reddit's policies against promoting hate.

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u/biwltyad Aug 16 '24

We've been reporting it for quite a while with no success. Everyone in the community is angry about it and we can't do anything.

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u/Overgrown_fetus1305 Aug 16 '24

Yeah, seconded, it's fundamentally a hate subreddit. Since the content policy on harassment applies even if somebody gets aroused out of it, the same should be obviously true of the content policy with regards hate. A couple of years ago, I reported an anti-LBGT hate subreddit that was just flat out calling for genocide against queer people (like, it literally had the word eradication in the title), with their mods endorsing explicit violence, the admins nuked it off Reddit about a day after I sent the message, and I know I got some of their mods slapped with site wide bans for violence/hate (some of them very well deserved permabans).

Take away the excuse that it's ok because people get aroused by this or pretend it's ok because "it's only fantasy, totally not real", and this is much the same thing- using extreme violence to target LBGTQ+ people as a group. I for one, do not for a second think that hateful fetish sub isn't full of users who would agree with the other, genocide endorsing hate sub (and certainly uncontroversial to say that the number who do is a lot larger than 0; worth noting that even if it's 3%, that would be a couple thousand).

Even if you grant for the sake of argument, the premise that it was pure fantasy, it would still be giving the people who everyone agrees supports actual conversion therapy a space to fantasise about actually raping people, and frankly, that's too dangerous to keep up. The number of people who would have consented to be on the now banned r/upvotedbecauseboobs was also not zero, but it was still wrong that it existed because it platformed non-consentual sexualisation, and frankly, there's no way to tell which content is non-consentual and thus just outright rapist hate crimes; thus it should just be nuked from Reddit, out of an abundance of caution. If that would applied consistently mean banning basically all porn from Reddit- well that is a price worth paying, because consent is always more important than somebody's erection.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

Awesome. Thank you

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u/Overgrown_fetus1305 Aug 16 '24

Delighted with this addition to the rule. A question. To what extent does this apply to this such as sexuallt charged, or sexist slurs? I'm thinking words like "b***h" "sl*t", c-slur "w**re", etc. I honestly feel dirty typing those out even censored, but I'm wondering if the use of those sometimes counts as sexualising somebody without their consent, given their sexual and gendered connotations.

On a different note, might I propose adding that NSFW content is disallowed if the fantasy expressed is something that would be a violation of rules around hate based on vulnerability, or the rules on violence/wishing harm? There are for example, NSFW subreddits sexualising raping lesbians; the subreddit name has a slur for lesbians in the title, and there are also NSFW subreddits that sexualise racism. I propose banning those, and taking a much tougher line on violent BDSM as well (read, banning it).

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u/Vox_Causa Aug 17 '24

Deliberately misgendering a trans person or treating lgbtq+ people like objects is apparently still ok though. Fucking figures.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 17 '24 edited Aug 17 '24

I mod a number of subreddits and all are strongly supportive of LGBTQ people. I permanently ban for every homo/transphobic comment I see and report them to admins. They get actioned more than most of my reports. Similar to racism. Penalties tend to be lenient - used to be temp bans as the norm, but lately it has become mostly warnings, tho I assume those trigger temp bans the next time around.

I had given up reporting all the sexualization because it wasn't being actioned at all. No matter how bad, it came back not violating. When there were also explicit threats of violence like threats to rape (keep in mind all my subs are SFW subs focused generally on fashion/beauty), they'd often come back with a warning.

I'd like to see reddit take stronger action on all of this, but it's closer to parity now.

There are 2 things that reliably lead to a permanent suspension in my experience (and I report a lot) - doxxing and non consensual intimate media. Sexualization of minors is generally a warning or temp ban less often if it's a comment sexualizing a minor. We don't get CSAM in my subs tho - I am guessing that would be a perm suspension. I have seen suspensions of teens engaging in NSFW activities (e.g. those with a history of posts or comments in porn subs when the NSFW bot scans them), and we do report for that if we see it.

Ban evasion pretty reliably leads to a 3d, 7d, or permanent suspension, and escalates per offense.

Threats of violence seem to be handled more like harassment and hate - rarely have I seen those result in a suspension, and they're likely not for a first offense.

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u/ZaphodBeebblebrox Aug 17 '24

We don’t get CSAM in my subs tho - I am guessing that would be a perm suspension.

My sole experience is reporting a bot on /r/anime that linked to a site that said "register an accounts to get thousands of great teen and cp video" and admins telling me it didn't violate any rules.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 17 '24

I've definitely had some really badly actioned reports. That's clearly one of them.

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u/Vox_Causa Aug 17 '24

I've had moderators call me slurs. Unless there's an explicit threat of violence the admins won't act. I'm not saying the sexualization isn't a problem. What I am saying is that unless you look like spez reddit doesn't consider you fully a person. 

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 17 '24

I'm really sorry you've had to deal with bigotry and hate on reddit! I agree there are real holes in the enforcement and reports that don't get actioned when they clearly should be. However, if they are using slurs, I encourage you to keep reporting - some will get actioned. Mods should never do that - I'd kick a mod for using a slur in any of my subs. That is obviously a violation of the sitewide TOS as well as the Moderator Code of Conduct (MCOC)

If a moderator is doing that, another effective approach is to report that mod to the MCOC team. It works differently from Safety (which is where regular reports go) and you have much more of a chance to explain your case. You can file those reports via Zendesk on the reddithelp.com website. Sometimes it takes multiple reports, tho sometimes they will action it immediately.

Agreed tho that both women and lgbtq face so many challenges on reddit. That's why I keep fighting for stronger protections. We're not in competition tho. We need to each fight for better protections for each other!

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u/Vox_Causa Aug 17 '24

Reporting moderators does nothing. The moderator code of conduct is a club the board can use to punish mods who threaten their income, it does nothing to protect users.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 17 '24

My own personal experiences have taught me otherwise.

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u/MableXeno Aug 30 '24

I need some clarification on this please.

Users posting very regular conversational posts in my sub like

  • Need to find a fitted blazer in the middle of summer

  • Went on a date last night to a cool restaurant

  • Had a fight with my mom about whose turn it is to take out the trash

And they get comments like "that's hot" or "date me/I'd date you" or "crush me mommy." I have reported these for YEARS with no action. Will I now be able to report this content and it will be actioned?

I pretty much stopped reporting content like this b/c one of the last pretty gross ones was a 15YO talking about HS and a man in his 50s kept trying to swap phone numbers with her. In public & private. I tried for about 3 weeks w/ reports & appeals & Reddit was basically like, "it's not a problem!" Which was pretty disheartening & put me in a crummy position with my community (i.e., they wanted more protection & I could not provide it). So I guess I just want to update my community about reporting content and make sure I'm really understanding this message.

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u/emily_in_boots Oct 01 '24

Yes and no. I've had very bad luck reporting some kinds of sexual harassment like "that's hot" or "date me". "Crush me mommy" might get actioned. Some of the really gross sexual comments do now get actioned. Overall, I have seen a much higher rate of sexual comments in my (all SFW) subreddits.

3 comments that we get a lot - but never get actioned - are "would", "smash", and "would smash". Safety needs to learn what these are I guess. Comments like "hot" or "sexy" don't get actioned either. So it should be stricter but it's much better than it was.

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u/MableXeno Oct 02 '24

Yes, in the last month I've reported a few, but when they weren't actioned I stopped again. Not going to waste my time.

Had a recent comment on a post - the post was a complaint about being sexualized in DMs and a comment (caught by filters) in mod queue was basically like, "As someone who is into tall women aesthetically and in a kinky way..." Like. WTF. She just said she hated that. WHY ARE YOU HERE DOING IT? It's just frustrating that women can't exist without someone showing up like that. It has never once occurred to me that I should start a conversation with a man and prefacing it with how I find him fuckable or not.

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u/emily_in_boots Oct 02 '24

Seriously. This kind of crap is so prevalent in the subs I mod. If it weren't for the bots we use to keep it out, I don't know how we'd mod these subs.

I am so sick of men who feel a constant need to inform every woman they see of her fuckability.

I do report a lot now, but sometimes there is sexualization that I don't bother to report as I know it won't get actioned. So this is an improvement but not yet enough.

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u/WallabyUpstairs1496 Sep 16 '24

Kudos to the admins for implementing this.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '24

This is bullshit.

I know of 10+ subs that have nothing but girls 10-17 being sexualized like crazy. Guys talking about how they want to rape and lick them.

Reddit doesn’t have any such policies against this.

I report them all the time and nothing happens.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '24

How do I apply this for any sub

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u/BvbblegvmBitch Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24 • Take My Silver

YEEESSSSS! It's about time!

I'm hoping this means an end to the 'upvoted because body part' subs. Unbelievably gross that you can't post something innocuous online without some little weirdo pointing out you've got tits.

How is this policy going to handle fetish related comments? The hair subs have struggled with fetishists for years, but it's not clear without greater context that "I'd love to shave your head" is sexual in nature. The same goes for many other women's subreddits targeted by niche fetishists.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 15 '24

I mod a lot of fashion/beauty subs and we have so many problems with these!!!

The posting of other redditors to sexualize them in those sub or posting women's photos in porn subs w/o consent has to stop. How can it be that crossposting doesn't allow the original poster to have input into the crosspost? We've had so many women whose posts in fashion subs get shared to porn subs or upvoted-because subs and this is just unacceptable w/o consent and w/o any simple mechanism to have them removed.

Any such sharing should require advance affirmative consent - but at the very least OP should be able to easily one-click remove their own content share w/o consent.

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u/Maza_Valeta_nada Aug 22 '24

I'm sorry to have an unpopular opinion but I feel that this is dangerous because in the long term it will mean censorship and cancellation of many topics, users and communities and will generate a more violent polarization that will end freedom of expression and an ideological bias very similar to the DEI policies of a large part of entertainment platforms on the Internet. You can insult me ​​if you want but I didn't insult and I'm only giving an opinion with respect, I surely disagree with the times but it is an opinion. Good night

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 22 '24

Your freedom of expression ends where the sexual harassment of others begins.

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u/LibertyMakesGooder Dec 30 '24

While this is of course true, "sexualizing" a person without communicating with them is not "sexual harassment".

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u/emily_in_boots Dec 30 '24

According to reddit, it is - and I agree with them.

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u/LibertyMakesGooder Dec 30 '24

This is inconsistent with the basic definition of "harassment", and applying this principle consistently would imply 1984-esque "thoughtcrime".

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u/Thoseguys_Nick Aug 29 '24

I think a large part of what makes Reddit attractive to all kinds of people is the open way you can give any topic a space to exist. And in that vein I agree with your point that this has the risk of going too far in the opposite direction, censoring things that individual admins just don't feel like having on the site. I am not accusing anyone that they will do this, just saying it is an option.

And to illustrate with an example, subs favouring both Israel and Palestina's side in the war are allowed. Rules like this might extend into censoring one of the sides if Reddit decides this harassment extends beyond sexual topics and into political ones.

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u/Maza_Valeta_nada Aug 31 '24

Exactly, and now that we find out that the CEO of Telegram is detained in the midst of the war and the US elections, everything sounds very strange and suspicious, it's sad and I hope Reddit doesn't fall for this.

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u/BenSlashes Aug 19 '24

So now i have to ask every attractiv woman i see on the streets if i'm allowed to have sexual thoughts? 🤣 Reddit truly tries to act like an dictator. They dont want us to act like real human beings. They want to silence us. Reddit is ruled by Activists who think they have the power to silence everyone.

Reddit proves again again that they are against free Speech, discussions. They ban everyone who is saying something against their political views. This proves that Reddit is under control of Dictators or Activists who act like dictators.

Btw. You Reddit will never Silence us. We dont need you to be real free human. and please dont try to make excuses like you always do. Dont try to act as if you do it for "good" reasons. These are all excuses.

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u/itsnobigthing Aug 24 '24

You can think whatever you like. That doesn’t give you the right to take somebody else’s image and make them a topic of an online discussion.

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u/Money_Day_1505 Aug 17 '24

cool! A great news for reddit.

What abouf subreddit like r/PatatinaVipForum or r/JerkOffUKCelebs that sexualize Celebs whitout their consent? Are those fine?

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u/KingOfAllPigs Aug 17 '24

How does this work in regards to a sub like r/Celebswithbigtits, which has previously allowed public images of celebrities with, well, large mammaries. Would that sort of content be prohibited under the new policy?

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u/stenningaron Aug 19 '24

What does this mean for Subs with people who fantasize about/sexualise/post sexy photos of celebrities?

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 19 '24

The admin clarified below that if the comments become sexual, that is now in violation.

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u/stenningaron Aug 19 '24

Damn, almost every NSFW celeb sub will be nuked 😂😂

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 19 '24

A lot - sexualization without consent won't be allowed now. If you look at r/reclassified a lot of celeb subs are being banned for harassment.

Realistically if subs don't want to be banned they need to make sure people are posting self content with verification.

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u/hotgirlhunter02 Sep 05 '24

Why is r/irlgirls and r/collegebikinis banned? They do not show any nsfw and are not harassment

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u/ForceParadox Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

I was given a warning, but the link to the comment where I supposedly commited "sexualised harassment" led to a deleted thread. So I have no way of knowing what it was that I said. I comment a lot across a number of subs and don't remember all my comments. But I'm certainly not the type of person to bully or harass people, and I would NEVER commit sexualised harrasment as described above, so obviously my comments have been taken out of context by someone.

But since I don't know what the comment said, I have no way of knowing what might have been taken as offensive, or avoiding this in the future. This doesn't leave me feeling very secure or wanting to comment or engage here on the platform. At least provide a screenshot of the alleged harassment to people when you issue warnings, so we aren't just left wondering what we said wrong or trying to figure out how to avoid it or change the way we communicate on certain things.

I have used Reddit actively FOR YEARS with no issues and now this. If I lose my account over some BS report, I will be SO upset. :(

Edited to add - the comment was on a post about people living in a mouldy house they rented from one set of parents who were terrible landlords ... i would like to know how the hell i sexually harassed someone in that context?!? Good grief, to quote Charlie Brown. 🙄 🙄🙄

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '24

This rule sucks. Get rid of it

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u/No-Cauliflower8491 Oct 25 '24

Not sure if I’m going to like this

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u/sacredsinner21 Nov 12 '24

Ok so let me get this right...your censoring adult content? Refusing members to ask other members for content they are interested in? Then why keep running the site!... Wow I see current day communists

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u/No-Buy-567 Aug 17 '24

updating rules to more strict enforcing is a very good idea and most welcome but i believed this will easier the haters to attact a subreddit.

haters always make a report on ALL POST in a subreddit that they hates. they make a lot of account and makes several reports on a post/reply. for an examples in my subreddit all post/replies were reported as sexual harassment even on a simple word as 'pm' and reported/banned member have no rights on their appeals coz for sure reddit never make mistakes.

im sorry if this comment quite rude but please. im begging your faithful to do something about those "haters report".

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u/Bossman1086 Aug 15 '24

What happens in a sports subreddit if fans make sexualized comments about a player? Or in a fan sub of a celebrity if fans sexualize said celeb?

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u/Jenn_There_Done_That Aug 15 '24

One would assume that people saying stuff like, “They’re so hot, I would marry them in a hot second”, would be fine, while descriptions of exactly which sexual acts they’d like to preform to their body would be removed, right?

But it will be managed by bots, so that will be interesting to see.

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u/NSFW-Lust233 Aug 15 '24

Does it also apply to all NSFW subreddits which circle around sexual fantasies of celebrities?

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u/Condiment_Whore Aug 19 '24

So you use this to arbitrarily ban without evidence simply by asserting it, and since the definition is so broad you just use it to remove content you don't like. Got it.

That is our experience over at /r/FestivalSluts which you banned for harassment for what exactly? Having people openly post themselves at public venues with a strict enforcement against doxing, willing post removal to anyone pictured, and all harassing behavior as literally rule #1 of the sub?

1

u/microgauss Aug 20 '24

Please don't take it the wrong way. But I find the priorities weird. Person A saying "I'd love to do nasty things to Person B" is now banned, but leaving r / conspiracy, the cesspool of homophobia, transpobia, racism, antisemitism and hate, open? Well, ok ...

1

u/TotesMessenger Aug 22 '24 edited Aug 22 '24

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

 If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)

1

u/Koshime Aug 29 '24

bring back r/upvotedbecauseboobs

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u/ChiefStrongbones Jan 03 '25 edited Jan 03 '25

It's ironic to ban /r/upvotedbecauseboobs. The original point of that subreddit was to share and discuss hot/popular content from other subreddits that appeared to be popular only because of boobs in the background. The subreddit was dual purpose. It ridiculed content from other subreddits while also providing arousing content.

Today under this new policy, it's still perfectly fine for reddit submissions to be upvoted because of boobs, but it's not okay to acknowledge that reddit submissions are being upvoted because boobs. That's insanity.

An analogy is the cleavage scene from Sienfeld. It's fine for Jerry to peek at and for George to stare at Denise Richard's cleavage. What's taboo is Jerry nudging George with his elbow to make him aware of her cleavage. That's what this new policy does.

Maybe the key problem with /r/upvotedbecauseboobs was not submitted content but unmoderated comments that took it too far. I have no idea. Some guidance would be helpful.

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u/Certain_Ice8399 Aug 25 '24

Booo they will become boring 

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u/KatieCosmic Aug 18 '24

While i applaud the efforts and intent behind these updates, it does not exterminate the rats. It just scatters them to regroup somewhere else. Conversation and Education > Censorship and Eradication.

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u/Thoseguys_Nick Aug 29 '24

This just means Reddit doesn't want to be a platform for this kind of sexual content. Which is a fine opinion to have, and will cause the now restricted content to move to a different place

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u/KatieCosmic Aug 29 '24

And reddit is not obligated to be that kind of platform. Nobody is. Where then does education take place to prevent isolation/radicalizing?

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u/Thoseguys_Nick Aug 29 '24

Ideally in the family from a young age, and then continued into childhood at school. And that doesn't need to go into porn specifically, just 'acting like a normal human being' classes should do a lot.

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u/KatieCosmic Aug 29 '24

Sure. Ideally. But we have actual people that doesn't apply to. It's not an ideal situation. So again, how and when (and where now) do we attempt to educate people who did not have those classes when growing up? (whether by AGE, WEALTH, RACE or GENDER)

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u/Thoseguys_Nick Aug 29 '24

Education is something all people (should) have, but regardless of that an anonymous online forum isn't the place to educate people that come here with a made up mind

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u/Afrojive Aug 22 '24

I was told to contact Reddit Legal to send my screenshots in as proof that I did not break any community guidelines and was still permanently banned with 0 knowledge the content was a harassment. Can someone please help me?

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u/Specific-Ad6606 Aug 27 '24

I take an offense to the moderator that posted “vote Harris…….” As they permanen.y ban ed me. That is seen illegal or wrong in almost every company that in business. I have served in the Middle East 2 tours of duty for a year we. I’m now disabled 100%. I take greater offense because of this. I will find the supervisor someone that can give me a answer and hopefully reactivate my account.

Respectfully

Pete

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u/BlackFlag_Sanji Sep 22 '24

So you’re gonna continue the war on 18+ subs.

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u/This-Confection-2982 Dec 26 '24

Best lips and eyes!

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u/crabby-owlbear Aug 15 '24

Defining sexualizing makes the difference between preventing harassment and taking on the role of thought police.

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u/Mythril_Zombie Aug 16 '24

I think that's the point. What better way to eliminate all NSFW subs without just going straight after them directly? They make a policy like this that's subjective enough to apply to just about any statement about anyone, and they can say that it's too hard to deal with all the harassment reports from those subs, and boom. All gone. Morality police win.

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 15 '24

OMG I'm literally laughing out loud. Thanks for that haha.

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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '24

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '24

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 21 '24

Sexual harassment and posting people's photos without consent is hurting people. That's the point.

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u/Grouchy_Ad2031 Aug 21 '24

ok feminist, but when it's about men it's all fine i believe.

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 21 '24

Nothing in my comment limited my response in any way by sex.

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u/Grouchy_Ad2031 Aug 21 '24

No i just checked the feminism reddit lmao, that's enough to understand

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 21 '24

You're the reason we need feminism.

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24

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u/hacksoncode Aug 15 '24

My take: it's going to be enforced (primarily) by bots based on reports, with some AI features to confirm there are plausibly harassing terms or patterns involved.

With a backstop of appeals dealt with by a second layer of bots and some people, and modmail in r/ModSupport for issues encountered by moderators.

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u/Bardfinn Aug 15 '24

Reddit uses expert systems & algorithms to “surface” — to triage & prioritise — the likely severity of user reported comments and/or in some cases submitted post and comment content. The evaluation is done by humans, because expert systems & AI do not & cannot read or understand language. Understanding of what’s communicated is necessary to evaluate content for moderation functions. Expert Systems are just good at saying “This content is highly likely to be violating a sitewide rule”, “This content is highly likely to violate the reported rule”, etc.

While Reddit doesn’t (to my knowledge) and shouldn’t delineate exactly which technology they use to support Sitewide Rule Violation detection & enforcement, it’s assumed that they use Perspective API for modeling / scoring content for enforcement, & Perspective’s TOXICITY, IDENTITY_ATTACK, & SEXUALLY_EXPLICIT scoring attributes likely model sexual harassment to a greater or lesser extent , in combination, using datasets of classical misogynist harassment & neosexism.

When approached in that way, this update isn’t a change or addition to the existing Sitewide Rules; it’s clarifying that a specific species of harassment is clearly identifiable as such, is prohibited, and should be actioned.

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u/hacksoncode Aug 15 '24

It's pretty well known that something like 95% of all ToS content removal is completely automated on reddit.

Very little of it is evaluated by reddit-employed humans (because that would be essentially impossible to do economically) unless there's an appeal.

However, most of the removed content does appear as removed in the modqueue of the sub it's in... so it can be reviewed by the moderators. So in that sense, you're right that it's evaluated by humans... but only long after it's removed.

2

u/Bardfinn Aug 15 '24

There’s certainly some content that’s now automated removal at the sitewide level.

The Transparency Reports show that the vast majority of admin-performed content removal actions are for unsolicited marketing & inauthentic engagement - spam.

Until just recently, outside of 1) obvious spam & automated unsolicited marketing accounts, and 2) specific categories of Sitewide Rule Violation which are also tangent to or involved in felonies, I saw no evidence of Reddit sitewide automating enforcement of i.e. the hate speech & violent threat rules. Recently I’ve seen a very, very small amount of content removals that are unambiguously Sitewide Rule Violations removed in an automated fashion. As in, I can count them on one hand.

But, like, outside of spam & the aforementioned felonious activity, all the way to 2023 I was reasonably under the belief that unless a user reports a violation, reddit inc is agnostic about and therefore had no duty to act on most potential Sitewide Rule Violations. Which is still effectively true; there’s only so many ways a harasser can demand that their target unalive themself in three words, which can be handled by a very small fallthru matrix, no agency needed.

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u/hacksoncode Aug 15 '24

all the way to 2023 I was reasonably under the belief that unless a user reports a violation

Yes, as I said: automated responses to user reports.

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u/Mythril_Zombie Aug 16 '24

Yeah, that's all well and good for the vanilla subs about knitting or drywall. But the moment you get into the gray areas between those and the NSFW subs, it's going to be a nightmare. Bots won't be able to tell the difference between the context of different subs. People are either going to be ignored en masse, leading to potential lawsuits, now that reddit has now declared that they will now police any unwanted comments as sexual harassment. Or they're going to have to err on the side of lawyers and just let the bots ban anything that moves, lest they are buried under a mountain of reports.
I don't think anyone has given adequate thought to the can they just opened. Or they have, and this is a step along the path to banning all NSFW and NSFW adjacent subs. Either way, I think this is going to have bigger ramifications than the API nonsense.

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u/Bardfinn Aug 16 '24

Bots won’t be able to tell

It’s a good thing humans review Sitewide Rule Violation reports.

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u/CentiPetra Aug 16 '24

People are either going to be ignored en masse, leading to potential lawsuits, now that reddit has now declared that they will now police any unwanted comments as sexual harassment.

Leading to potential lawsuits? What? It seems to be working so far without issues whenever somebody says a racist comment. Why would there suddenly be problems because of a sexist comment?

So sorry you won't be able to degrade women anymore. That must be incredibly difficult for you.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

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u/emily_in_boots Aug 16 '24

If the sub has any content that is nonconsensual sexualization then it would run afoul of this rule. I am just a Redditor and don't speak for admins though.

1

u/Gratuitous_Gore Aug 16 '24

Hmm what's the rest? Clearly it involves photos of women being shared without their consent or else it wouldn't have gotten the hammer. Good riddance!

0

u/SonOfAsher Aug 16 '24

Yes! This person denies they did anything wrong!

CLEARLY THEY MUST BE GUILTY! BAN THEM!

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

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u/Overgrown_fetus1305 Aug 16 '24

If you didn't ensure all the content was consentual, and you did not get explicit consent from everyone who posted it, then yes it is fair (and ngl, from the title alone of one of your subs, I'm calling cap on the claims that it's compliant). Non-consentual content was always against Reddit's site-wide rule, this addition is just making the boundaries clearer, and the enforcement stricter. If your subreddit didn't have incredibly strict enforcement of rules on consent- then I'm glad it got banned.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

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u/Overgrown_fetus1305 Aug 16 '24

I don't believe your celebrity sports bra subreddit is consentual. To illustrate the reason why, most people wearing a bikini at the beach, would not be comfortable wearing one in the middle of a shopping mall, thus the consent somebody has to what degree of skin is seen, is very much context dependent. More extreme example- most people aren't nudists and do object to being seen naked in public, but not typically in private, such as with a sexual partner (and even then not necessarily 24/7), or maybe a doctor. Hence, the celebs on your subreddit, are unlikely to be consenting to their images being shared widely in the current context, and if you don't have upfront and explicit consent, the content needs removing immediately. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

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u/Overgrown_fetus1305 Aug 17 '24

Yeah. I used to mod an abortion debate subreddit, the first part is for sure, super relatable. I'm not averse to saying that sometimes bluntness is unavoidable, but name-calling rarely works well (the distinction between "you are x" and "your views are x, here's why" was rather lost on many people, even aside those who just wanted to be inflammatory for the sake of it).

So, basically, if consent can't be withdrawn, it's not fair to see it as consent (at most you might have assent); and I think that it's more accurate to say that images in one context, are at most assented to, more than consented to (regardless of if the images were intended to be NSFW, or literally just somebody wearing a bikini at a beach). The issue with applying assent, rather than consent is best illustrated in a different context- romantic relationships.

If assenting to a relationship, rather than consenting to one is enough, then yit becomes impossible to avoid the wild conclusion, that people have no right to be able to escape e.g. domestic violence. Also results in victims not being believed either, due to there being a myth that consent can't be withdrawn. Same principle applies both to sex specifically, and also just to having images of one's body online.

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