Mike Hardaker, who has maintained a Reddit account for 20 years, has been shadow-banned on Reddit. He has posted an update on X, stating that Reddit requires an ad spend to restore organic posting. This demand was given to him in writing.
So let me get this straight. Some jerk off looking to advertise his site by spamming links on several subs was hoping to AstroTurf COUGH I mean organically post… And Reddit Ad Team saw that and figured they could milk him for some dollars? So this doucher takes to Xhitter to try to get sympathy?
Ahh capitalism at its finest.
wut
Unless the article is absolutely lying, it mentioned the subreddits wanted the posts and couldn’t overcome the sitewide ban (i.e. manually approving the content). Your comment is a really huge stretch there.
Hardaker is the operator of Mountain Weekly News, and he regularly used to contribute to three or four subreddits
So I am going to stop right there and ignore any conceivably ingenious reply you may come up with to justify and spin what the dude is actually doing. Spend enough time on Reddit like the grownups around here and you’ll eventually understand.
Listen, kid, I’ve been on reddit since 2009. I hung out with the admins in IRC back in the day. I was a default mod for a while, and I’m the “father” of /r/nottheonion.
There’s plenty I don’t know about reddit and life in general, but on this topic, clearly I know a fuck ton more than you.
There was a time on reddit when self-promotion was against the rules. That rule was dropped something like a decade ago.
The simple fact is that - from at least the article’s telling - the subreddits wanted the content, and in that case, it is absolutely fine and encouraged for someone to submit.
There’s a guy making youtube reviews of restaurants in my local city’s subreddit. The content is popular - people like it. So we absolutely are happy to see him post. Is it self-promotion? Yes, technically. It’s also relevant to the subreddit and desired by the mods and members of the subreddit.
You’re like the people saying “dis a repost” when someone CROSS-posts. Note that reddit has a BUILT IN SYSTEM for cross-posting, but there are redditors who don’t know that.
So, little boy, you can take your condescension and /r/confidentlyincorrect along with /r/iamverysmart and fucking LEARN something, or go off and continue to be willfully ignorant.
Disclaimer: If the article’s reporting is incorrect and the subreddits considered it spam, well, that’s not what the article said, and I don’t otherwise have other knowledge of it, nor do I care enough to google for any other possible sources. But that’s the informatio you’re working off of as well, so there’s that.
PS: To add a light-hearted end: I’ll go to /r/dontyouknowwhoiam now :) (that name seems too long. Is that the right one/ Well, you probably know what I mean and I’m too lazy to look it up :P )
Hey Unc. You coming to the barbecue Sunday?
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Yeah, but why the fish and the banana? You have to explain that in more detail, my man.
One doesn’t explain copypasta, one is merely a vessel through which the copypasta flows
He might not be morally good, but what Reddit is doing here is illegal in many places.
First mistake: Staying on Reddit. Fuck Spez.
Second mistake: Complaining about Reddit on X. Fuck Musk.
Let’s just hope this user stays away from substack next.
Here’s my story on Medium about my journey from Reddit, to X, to Substack! Like and subscribe guys!
I’m new to this, is substack not the place to be for writers?
Oh boy…
I found out today that they have removed r/all from the mobile platforms.
The one unifying feed… Heaven for it folk experience consensus media or have a shared experience.
By slicing it all up they can tweak individual algorithms to push more jank than ever. No longer do they have to game the system to get AstroTurfed Ads on the front page.
Actually, didn’t they used to call themselves the “front page of the internet”? How does that work if no one sees the same page?
I think most people unsubscribe from r/all anyway and subscribe to subs related to their favorite hobbies and games and work related info. Most of my frontpage is for video games I’m currently playing, programs I’m currently using and odd fun subs like moviemistakes or maybemaybemaybe. I wish I could do that here.
And that’s all cool… But it is weird to take that choice away from users.
Much like here, a quick browse of all introduces me to a wider world with different concerns. It’s how I find stuff.
And I’m pretty sure what you do is possible here… What are you having a problem with?
I can’t figure out how to unsub from the Lemmy version of r/all. So I’m getting latestagecapitalism, politics, politicalmemes, various communist instances. 80% of what’s on my page is politics. I’m not interested in that.
What client are you using?
On Voyager there is a tab at the top to switch between all and “home”. Home is just the subs you subscribe to.
I’m using the website. After what you said, I checked and it has Subscribed/Local/All at the top of the page. That’s really nice. I just started using Lemmy so I haven’t completely figured it out yet. I use old reddit, so it might be set up the same way as new reddit but I wouldn’t have known.
Edit:
What are hidden posts?
You can set it to default to the Subscribed feed in your settings.
You can chose to hide posts.
That might be based on a keyword, for example, “Trump”, or based on tages such as NSFW.
You can always chose to see these posts again.
Forgot fuckcars. Not a day goes by that I don’t see it.
Wtf is organic posting.
Writing spam posts like “I’m really satisfied using this website, totallynotanad.com” or “try using Company XYZ, their service is really good”
REAL humans posting. anything that utilizes bots, AI isnt organic, but reddit often bans the real humans over AI posting.
as you know reddit bans people if it looks for patterns thats repeating itself.
Hmmm, human posting? I like it.
Like you just did with your comment and OP did with their posting: non paid ad posting
Posting which doesn’t use petroleum based fertilizer
It’s a variation on a reddit as I understand it, an unusual sex move. Organic posting is where, well, you don’t want to know.
It’s when you don’t have sex because you are posting on reddit?
No I think it’s when you sit in the cuck chair and beat off to the government raping someone while you pretend it’s consensual.
He posted this on xitter. It goes in the trash along with reddit.
I mean, if you want more than three people to see the post…
…you’ll have to buy ad space.
You get yourself to BlueSky
Its 2026, there are only three types of people left on xitter. Pedophiles, white supremists and people from the isle of moro.
Once I got banned like a thousand times within the span of 5 minutes because I reported a pro-Trump post as child abuse. I assume it really triggered some admin.
I wonder if this admin was named maxwellhill.
Sound more like you learned the hard way what “abusing the system” mean.
Oh, no, I didn’t give a shit, I burned through Reddit accounts like nobody’s business. The fact that the admin was so triggered as to sit there, banning and unbanning me, just to spam me with notifications, was the greatest possible reward I could have ever asked for.
First thing I did on the new account was report the exact same post. Didn’t get banned.
Quite odd behavior, this is not a moderator but an administrator on the site wide?
Yeah, moderators can’t do sitewide bans, only Reddit administrators (employees) can do it.
Ok but that’s fucking hilarious. Wish I’d thought of it first.
The bigger news here is that Reddit, as a policy, allows bot posting (organic posting) as long as you’re buying ads from them.
C’mon, is it news? Isn’t that the reason we’re all here?
I mean there’s gut feeling and then there’s real actual evidence.
Exactly.
It’s one thing for Reddit to be taking action against automated posting and just be doing a shitty job. At least they’d be TRYING to fight against this source of toxic societal corrosion.
It’s a whole other kind of immoral to see that their anti-bot activities are simply cover for the enforcement branch of their ad sales department. Bots are not against the rules at all, spamming communities to create false consensus is A-OK with Reddit as long as the check clears.
Fuck Spez even more. I heard he was a moderator on r/jailbait for quite some time, btw
At least they put it in writing. They suspended and deleted all of my 15 years of posts, comments and moderating without even a good by. Fuck Spez, and Fuck Reddit may they reap the whirlwind.
I don’t know who this guy is, but the fact that he is crying on twitter about being shadow-banned on reddit tells me I don’t really give a fuck about him, his opinion, or his perceived slights against him.
I care if reddit is dishonestly enforcing rules to force people to buy ads. That’s good for us actually. If only we had more enlightened instances with more functionality.
Niche communities don’t turn on a dime to a new platform. He’s on Twitter because his audience is on Twitter.
Can anyone tell me what the fuck an organic account and organic posting is? Is this the def?
Organic social media refers to unpaid content that individuals and brands share on social media to engage audiences without paid ads or direct selling.
And if so, wtf. I mean, I expected nothing less from the Reddit zionist cesspool, but still…
Fuck you u/spez.
If you didn’t leave when the API pricing went up, everything is your fault.
“I got caught trying to advertise for free and they want me to pay for it like everyone else!”
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
Dude needs to go play in traffic.
an ad spend
When you’re off the used car lot, ‘spend’ is still only a verb, and the word you wanted here is maybe ‘purchase’ or ‘deal’.
‘The spend’, ‘the ask’, and other cheese should stay back with the pre-owned Pontiacs.
I wish they’d sunset this shit
It’s actually a proper term in current marketing parlance. You can find it in glossaries in AppsFlyer, Adjust, and any of dozens of other digital marketing applications.
Ad spend is the amount of money a marketing team spends on digital and traditional advertising campaigns.
In the OP this differentiates it from a fine or paid feature. They’re are literally requiring them to buy advertising to allow them to post in an open forum.
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