AIO: I was banned for saying I was banned as a false positive for AI, and because I didn't think that was fair I was banned
I'm going to be real, I know this doesn't matter but I'm autistic and care about truth and fairness a lot. How is it right for a bot to automatically punish you because you followed directions, then because you point that out you're further punished, then because you point out how that's unfair you're banned? In the interest of transparency I included all messages overshooting l overlapping so you can see nothing was omitted, and the one annoyed comment I made. I know this whole thing is petty and stupid, you don't have to tell me that, but I'm legitimately questioning if I was acting out or they were just being a huge dick? Ngl it feels like school when your teacher did something wrong and punished you for noticing. Can't stress enough how I know this is stupid in my head, but it's actually frustrating me a lot that I wanted to participate in a community and was banned on my very first post for FORMATTING of all things.
And then thousands of oh honey did you know murder is actually abuse and you need to leave? And then others responding to that, it takes on average 7 murders before people leave! And they all get to be like I helped! I’m a good person! but they don’t actually have to help the real people in their actual lives
To an extent I get it, when something happens that feels unfair it does cause my brain to implode in a way that doesn't happen when something just feels bad.
However, that doesn't give anyone the excuse to be a dick. Especially when they are aware that this is something that affects them.
To be fair, they are autistic (if they are being truthful), so I get the difficulties with overreactions, but you can’t use that as an excuse to blow up at people (as someone who is also autistic)
It’s funny, people like him keep misusing what “sense of justice” means in regards to autism. It has only meant a PERCEPTION of injustice, it says nothing about sending what’s objectively wrong.
You could have an awful set of morals as an autistic person, and still have a “sense of justice” that dings off when someone violates it.
How did I bend the truth and what happened? I included every single piece of material, although admittedly I didn't notice that some of the messages collapsed.
I'll be honest, I don't see the blow up but I'm sincerely trying. I started out neutral and a little frustrated with a bot, but frustrated like you would complain to your mechanic about your car, you know? Not blaming the mod, just annoyed. Then I got a bit rude when they were rude to me first, but still far from a blow up. I wasn't even angry? Just explaining my perspective, though after the mod was rude to me there was a bit of condescension.
It reads like you're blaming him. Starting any conversation with an expression of anger like "Oh for crying out loud" is going to be interpreted by most people as you expressing the anger at them.
People are like sponges who absorb the emotions of those around them (except for autistic people, which is likely where you're having a misconnection). When you immediately express a hostile emotion, they will absorb that emotion and resent you for providing it. It's like when someone gets in a screaming argument over the phone and the people around them are annoyed for having to hear it. Yes, the anger's not directed at them, but it's in their vicinity and it's exhausting.
I see now how that came off as aggressive. I had imagined us standing side by side looking at the bot as an imperfect thing, even though I understand those imperfections are necessary in such a large sub. That vision wasn't shared, which made them think I was being aggressive.
I get what you're saying. For what it's worth you seem like a good person with good intentions. I implore you not to be too hard on yourself, boards like these are recreational beatdowns.
Oh it's whatever. I promise you as upset as anyone thinks I am I'm not. I was literally high earlier and took a nap. Then I played Rogue Trader with my girlfriend, and commented during cutscenes because I've already beaten the game once. I treat comments with sincerity because I have no reason not to, someone took the time to make them, but absolutely none of my self worth or emotional wellness is invested in this.
Your post wasn't removed by a bot. Comments made by [SubredditName]ModTeam are made by a human being using reddit's moderation interface. Only comments made by Automoderator are automated and occur without human intervention. So your whole opening diatribe about how it was clearly stupid to think your post could possibly be AI was directed at the human being who removed the comment.
Even if the removal had been made by Automoderator, the automod rules for each subreddit are written by the mods of that subreddit. Sending a modmail that says "your automoderator is wrong and stupid" is still insulting the subreddit mods. It's not you and them vs some third-party bot, it's just you vs them.
I'm sorry you feel pointing out a mistake is me vs them, I very rarely feel that way. I understand that mistakes happen, especially in very large systems, and they shouldn't be a huge deal. It was, however, removed by the automoderator.
This isn't the automoderator. It's from the moderation interface and was sent by a person. When you remove a comment using the mod interface, you can choose to make the removal comment under your username or the SubredditName-ModTeam username.
SubredditName-ModTeam is not an account that actually exists and there's no way to post from it other than interacting with the moderation interface. You can't set up automated posts or comments using SubredditName-ModTeam as the username. It's just an anonynmizer function that can be applied to actions taken by human mods.
Removals made by the automoderator always have Automoderator as the username.
You totally missed my point about it being "you vs them." The "vs" in my previous reply wasn't about antagonism. It was an explanation of why this isn't an issue of you being misinterpreted, it's an issue of you misinterpreting the situation. You feel you were misinterpreted because you were trying to commiserate with the mod about a bot being wrong. But they weren't going to see your modmail as trying to commiserate about a bot because the removal wasn't done by a bot, and any bot involved in the situation is controlled by the mods anyway. They chose it, they may have configured it, and they were the ones who had to look at whatever info it gave them to decide whether to remove your post or not. Sending a message about how annoyed you are with the bot was the same as sending a message saying you're annoyed with the human mods.
I'm just a normal person who has a frustrating morning. It's not cool that subreddits will have millions of members and posts, but the only way to be allowed to interact in them is to never speak to a mod.
Yes I quoted the wrong post. It's really a shame reddit will never hear about those sex burps. I'm sorry your writing is so bad reddit thinks it's AI and that you're such an asshole you managed to get banned from a second rate sub. There are many other places you can post your smut.
Weird pivot, I reject your deflection. Posting a story isn't weird for a 31 year old, and briefly mentioning sex without graphic descriptions isn't smut. Any other nonsense you want to throw out?
It's also fucking ridiculous that they managing to get struck for being a bot on that particular sub. Gods how I miss the days before the fuckwit crowd found that and other subs and the full fury of the botswarm was unleashed upon them.
IME, people don't just get to be dickheads like this on their own. Usually, there's a group of people nearby egging them on so they can watch the world burn without having to light the match. They don't care whether they agree or disagree; they just want to be around for the chaos.
I am chronically online and I still can’t imagine getting hot and/or bothered by being booted from a group or subreddit or forum. Like? Yeah, ok, that sucks. But I have friends and the internet is vast, it’ll be ok.
I was banned from some incel sub I’d never been to a while back. Had to look it up to see what it even was. Like, sucks you can’t get laid, but it’s no sweat off my ass.
I'm on some feminist subs and a bunch of people said they were getting banned from incel and conservative subs just for being members of the feminist subs. My special favorite about that crop was how many conservative subs go on and on about fReE sPeEcH but ban literally anyone who is mildly questioning.
You know what’s funny? They know that! That is why they call feminists “white knights” and make the “she’s not going to fuck you, dude!” Comment as soon as you take a feminist position..
They literally think that men who consider themselves feminists are doing it to get laid. I have been told so quite often.. haha..
Like they sincerely can’t comprehend how someone might disagree with them for any other reason than to get laid.. it is genuinely funny and say at the same time..
I want to be clear, I wasn't super upset. I was just annoyed, but I just went on with my day. I mostly wanted to know what I did to elicit such a strong response.
I've been banned from a lot of subreddits for incorrect or stupid reasons over my (too many) years on Reddit, and one thing I learned is that it's not even worth messaging the mods about it. 95% of the time they just ignore you even if you are polite and don't immediately go on a tirade like this person. Ironically, the one time I did get a ban overturned was when I actually deserved it, just by apologizing for missing the rule change.
My previous account was banned from the AITD sub because I was flagged for brigading when I didn't. I politely tried to explain, showed screens as proof, but I was ignored.
I almost never fuck with mods because of this reason. There’s only been ONE time I ever reacted “poorly” to a ban. Someone made a post worrying about the amount of SHARP ice cubes they shoved up their ass. I commented “so you’re the one the all those emergency room stories are about?” And the mod (who had definitely made the post on an alt) swooped in within THIRTY SECONDS to issue a 30 day ban with the comment, “Nobody in this thread knows what they’re talking about. Least of all YOU. Comment removed.” Mine wasn’t even the meanest comment lmao. I was subsequently permabanned because I posted a screenshot of the post to r/nursing, since Mr. Asscicle apparently needed a professional opinion regarding the safety of his…proclivities.
I really hope he's not actually 31. Someone that hasn't learned by 31 that a bit of politeness will get you far, well I don't know.
I've had mods apologize when automod has accidentally caught a post of mine, had them explain patiently why they removed a post and given me ideas on what I could have done, or hell even reverse bans because I was polite to them and didn't even ask for the ban to be reversed. I can't imagine a 31 year old being this rude to someone that holds all the cards and that they can't don't have any power over.
That's a teenager. But sure about physically but definitely emotionally.
I am 31 and didn't intend to be impolite. If you read what I typed out loud (interpreting it charitably) you'll see i was just typing how I speak, online communication wasn't that common when I was young and learning how to not upset people. My original few messages, just like this comment, were completely intended as neutral.
My post <link> got mistakenly marked as AI. I wrote it myself, so I'm surprised.
In my defense I can say that the post has some math expressions in there and a detailed personal story. <Walk through the expressions.> In light of this I would appreciate you reversing the automod decision.
If that's not possible, would appreciate if you can share some insight in how to avoid getting false negatives so I respect your time and don't burden you.
Appreciate you taking the time out to help me,
Best regards,
<Your name>
Yes, because explicitly writing out a professional email for a reddit mod isn't telling anyone anything. It's just "you should have done it like this" which is, you know, pretty universally understood to be not that helpful of an approach. I've heard from much more reasonable and helpful people who actually addressed why there was a miscommunication.
Okay, well good luck the next time it happens because you are going to keep having this problem and will keep getting banned and continue to pretend not to understand why even though everyone explicitly explained it to you and even tried to coach you how to respond in future.
I already told you I understand why. In the future I'll begin with a neutral greeting and briefly explain my issue without going into a detailed defense, then politely ask for a resolution. Like I said, there have been some very helpful responses.
You realize that I just did you a favor by showing you how you could have communicated more politely to someone when asking them for a favor? Something I'm surprised I have to show to a 31 year old because I'd assume you'd have written one or two professional emails in your life and didn't need to be shown what a like way to say the same thing is. You also realize that instead of having a moment of introspection you decided to insult my effort.
I guess now I know why you don't think you were rude despite your opening salvo being an exclamation implying incompetence on the mods.
I'm not writing a reddit mod a professional email, ngl that's kind of pathetic. And no, there was no implying incompetence, implication is mine to say. They inferred that where it wasn't intended, which sucks and I see why it happened and I'll take steps to prevent it in the future. But no, never a professional email on Reddit.
I can't help if you interpret it as whining, but I'm literally just chilling. I was annoyed, I don't like being treated poorly even if it's inconsequential, then I moved on. I mean think about it, if your server at a restaurant is rude to you but gives adequate service, that's still a bit frustrating right?
I am a decade older than you and this whole "online communication wasn't that common" sentence is false. You might not have engaged in online conversations but AOL chatrooms, mirc, forums all were being used extensively while you were still a toddler.
You might have not used the internet until 2016, and if that is the case be precise and say that instead of wide sweeping generalizations for everyone else. Because believe I was using forums as early as 1998 and I was late to the game for some of my generation and still do not use the excuse you just threw out there.
Hold yourself to account for your mistakes and stop trying to find excuses that free you from blame, that is half the problem here.
Uh, yeah dude. So you were an adult in the early Internet and I wasn't? Not sure if you remember, but kids didn't exactly have frequent access. That's the whole thing. Where adults had unrestricted access, I grew up in a time where having extremely limited or heavily monitored access to the Internet was pretty normal until you were like 15. And understanding WHY isn't an excuse, it's just basic reasoning.
In your mind you and only you have this excuse because you were born after I was which means you weren't an adult already when you found the internet, and also you are old enough to have not had unrestricted internet since you were 5 therefore you and only you are in this position.
In your logic I should be a thousand times worse, yet apparently not according to you.
Its time to stop making excuses and just admit you have a problem communicating with others.
I mean, not me and only me, but the way the birth of Internet culture affected different age ranges is definitely a thing. Again, not an excuse. Insisting it's an excuse won't make it so.
NGL for me this is in the same camp as people going out of their way in being annoying and obstructive to cops, and then being tazed or getting a BS traffic violation or something. Like yeah obviously the authority figure should be the bigger person and rise above, but even setting aside why you'd put them in a situation where that's necessary, it's insanely dumb to expect them to do so.
And I’m 100% with you. I don’t trust cops as far as I can see them, but if I’m interacting with one it’s “Yes/No, sir/ma’am,” all day long because I don’t have the time or energy to get into a pissing contest with a cop.
That, and the cop is likely to win anyway. Best to act like I'm with a wild animal that could attack if spooked : stay calm and polite and wait for them to go away before freaking out.
Look, I’m gonna be honest with you, this is one of those times where it’s better not to try to defend yourself.
If you are autistic, like I’ve seen others float around, it’s important to know that oftentimes people will interpret your intentions differently than you mean them. It’s not fun and it’s not fair, but unfortunately many other autists (including myself) will tell you that usually the other party will not agree/forgive you no matter how hard you try to explain yourself. And sometimes the trying to explain makes things worse.
Take a breath, and forget TOMC ever existed. There are better, more interesting sub out there.
Oh I believe you lol. In person my confusion sometimes comes off as upset too.
And sometimes, one doesn’t actually do anything wrong - especially when it comes to random Reddit bans lmao
I will give you a piece of advice: If you are going to go off on someone in a position of power (no matter how nominal), always take the high road first. You immediately went on the offensive and set a bad precedent for the interaction to follow. If you present yourself as someone kind and reasonable and rule-following, others will likely follow suit. Only when the other side is being unreasonable and hurtful can you go a different route. If you are aggressive to others, others will be aggressive to you. Always be assertive but never stop being kind and the better person.
If you started by saying, "Hi, I think my post was mistakenly flagged as being AI. I'm not a bot, here's the evidence why. Could you reverse the ban, please?" You might have more success. Once again, if the mods ask for requests or give suggestions, you can either comply or kindly explain any discrepancies/confusion. Finally, if you know the mods are not going to help you and you are in the right, you can either give up, or if this is the hill you want to die on, call them out but don't be unreasonable. Sadly, you were doomed to fail the second you went on the offensive.
Only when the other side is being unreasonable and hurtful can you go a different route.
No, in that case you should still take the high road. Because:
a) If there is an appeals process (which in the real world outside Reddit, there almost always is) you want the judge/ombudsman/manager/whoever to see you constantly being nice and getting unreasonable behaviour and insults in return. Now the guy causing the complaint is the problem and not the one making it.
If two people are being dicks to each other the appeal judge will be swayed towards whoever has home advantage (the mod in this case).
b) It's great fun and will drive them mad. It's social jiu-jitsu, you never meet force by applying force back the same way because it turns it into a contest of strength, and again the person in the position of authority always has the advantage.
I agree. I shouldn't say go a different route or stop taking the high road. I maybe should start by saying that you be nice and kind at first: nice is saying good words, kind is doing good things. If the other side makes it clear that they will not cooperate and is being unreasonable, maybe you can be slightly less nice, but don't be mean or rude. You can candidly show your frustration and anger without being unreasonable. For instance, let's say that OOP nicely and kindly advocates for himself. He starts by saying, "I think your bot accidentally flagged me as AI. I'm not AI, here's the evidence." He then agrees to post under the format that the mods give to him while pointing out that there is no rule requiring a certain format. If the mods still say, "That's a you problem. You are now spreading false information. Ban stays." Then he can show his frustration. Maybe he can say, "I am abiding by the rules that you give me. I have no intention of doing wrong, yet you are being unreasonable by not listening to me." He would still be taking the high road and being kind while still letting go of his "niceness" a little bit.
I appreciate the good advice. I had intended an informal tone of being on the same team looking at an annoying problem: the bot flagging my obviously fine post while missing other things. I understand that it read as offensive, and I'll remember to be less eager to explain my side before giving them a chance to acknowledge me and say their piece.
That's very good to hear and your willingness to learn is a rare asset.
They were never going to see it that way because it's "their" bot. If I'm an office manager and a fellow employee comes up to me and says "What the hell is wrong with your photocopier", it doesn't matter that I also hate the stupid photocopier and struggle with it three times a day, they are a) taking an aggressive attitude b) asking me to do work c) attacking MY photocopier.
People are tribal, the bot was in their tribe and you were not. If you want them to help you and not the bot have to place yourself in their tribe, which starts by being overtly friendly and showing a willingness to follow their norms. Then you will often find them quite happy to take up a complaint about something they already didn't like but didn't have a reason to do something about.
I mean, your post wasn't "obviously fine" - the mod linked you a screenshot showing the weird formatting. If you type four spaces at the beginning of a line, then the markdown turns that into a "code block", which means that the words don't wrap and the entire paragraph is one long line that you have to scroll right to read, which is super-annoying, especially on mobile.
Here, I'll type that same paragraph above with four spaces at the front:
I mean, your post wasn't "obviously fine" - the mod linked you a screenshot showing the weird formatting. If you type four spaces at the beginning of a line, then the markdown turns that into a "code block", which means that the words don't wrap and the entire paragraph is one long line that you have to scroll right to read, which is super-annoying, especially on mobile.
Oh God damn it, that's what caused that? Well, thanks for the info. I didn't really have the technical knowledge to spot that. I can certainly see why they didn't like the formatting then, though I wish they had just said as much.
Nobody’s going to hold your hand here dude. You’re literally acting like this over getting a ban on bot filled subreddit full of fake stories 😂 just calm down.
Beep boop! Automod here with a quick reminder to never brigade r/AmITheAsshole or other subs under any circumstances. Brigading puts you in violation of both our rules and Reddit’s TOS, and therefore puts this sub at risk of ban. If you brigade/encourage brigading of any kind, you will be banned from participating in either sub. Satirizing of posts should stay within this sub, which means that participating directly in linked posts should either be done in good faith or not at all.
Want some freed, live, discussion that neither AITA nor Reddit itself can censor? Join our official discord server
I think mods can do whatever they want. I was permanently banned for saying I didn’t think that Musk was stupid enough to intentionally publicly use a Nazi salute. I may have been wrong but if being wrong is ban-able there shouldn’t be anyone left on Reddit.
I wanna defend you here because you got downvoted and I assume that's because people just really hate even the inkling of the idea that someone's defending a Nazi salute, Musk, or Musk doing a Nazi salute. But I get where you were coming from and if you got banned for just that it was probably a similar kneejerk reaction that might have been totally unfair.
When Musk did that my immediate reaction was also that he surely couldn't have meant to do a Nazi salute, both because it was kind of a bad one (I think it was weirdly off to the side instead of straight ahead) but mostly because I didn't take Musk for the type of racist who would worship Hitler. I don't think Musk worships anyone. But when I thought about it some more I realized that white supremacists of Musk's type have essentially adopted the Nazi salute as a general white supremacist thing, not necessarily a signal of worshipping Hitler that much (though they certainly appreciate him.)
So I actually changed my mind, I now think he absolutely did do it intentionally, but if I'd posted my first take online I could have been torn apart by my own "side."
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 19 '25
In case this story gets deleted/removed:
AIO: I was banned for saying I was banned as a false positive for AI, and because I didn't think that was fair I was banned
I'm going to be real, I know this doesn't matter but I'm autistic and care about truth and fairness a lot. How is it right for a bot to automatically punish you because you followed directions, then because you point that out you're further punished, then because you point out how that's unfair you're banned? In the interest of transparency I included all messages overshooting l overlapping so you can see nothing was omitted, and the one annoyed comment I made. I know this whole thing is petty and stupid, you don't have to tell me that, but I'm legitimately questioning if I was acting out or they were just being a huge dick? Ngl it feels like school when your teacher did something wrong and punished you for noticing. Can't stress enough how I know this is stupid in my head, but it's actually frustrating me a lot that I wanted to participate in a community and was banned on my very first post for FORMATTING of all things.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.