Poll: Shadowbanning/Stealth Banning; Agreeable or No?

[Paragon Fury]

So a topic that popped up recently on Reddit was the practice of "Shadow"/Stealth Banning people from Subreddits, or websites altogether;

Basically "Shadow"/Stealth banning is the practice of either preventing people's posts/threads from appearing altogether, or making it look like they appear to the person in question, but they don't actually appear for anyone else, even if that person is given a direct link to the topic (one of the easiest ways to find if you've been stealth banned). Or in some cases returning a mysterious/vague "error" message that can't seem to be resolved.

The concern is that rather than police actual offenses, this type of banning is used to enforce political views/ideas and the personal whims/ideas of moderators and sites without having to commit to an actual ban that could get the issuer caught (since there is no trail, no statements issued and often the target can't even tell).

Is "Shadow"/stealth banning acceptable? Or should sites and mods grab their brass ones and make themselves and the reason for the bans known in all cases?

For my personal view, I've very much seen and been on the receiving end of the negative end of this kind of banning - I'm an old veteran of IMGUR's NSFW Wars. The Cliffnotes version is this;

Spoiler

The popular image hosting/sharing site IMGUR didn't used to have filters or much in the way of rules. The sites owner and manager, Sarah, wanted to crack down on a lot of the outright porn and such that was being posted. So she and her mods began banning anything remotely NSFW, including things that you could ostensibly find in a PG-13 movie or T rated game. This made a lot of the community mad as it seemed that the mods and Sarah were completely overreacting without trying to find any middle ground. It went back and forth pretty badly, but Sarah finally broke down and relented - IMGUR received a filter system and a "Mature" category, though outright porn was still banned. However, Sarah very clearly was bitter over losing and having to give in lest she lose their viewership of her site. She's allowed her mods to basically run rampant and the defining rule is "You could be banned/have your content removed for having pretty women, period, at the sole personal taste of the mods/Sarah". Though they claim they don't shadowban and that they follow an objective standard for banning and removing content, basically no one believes them. One user in particular even made a forum thread showing how the site shadow bans people (IMGUR likes the "Infinite Vague Error Message" approach)....though it was quickly taken down.

 

[Saelune]

No, they are not ok. If someone is in trouble, ever, they deserve to be aware of it. Transparency is a good thing too.

 

[Aeshi]

I only recently learned that Youtube does this too if you either make too many comments (which makes a sort of sense) on a particular video or edit a comment too many times (which really doesn't.)

As someone who has a bad habit of doing that second one, I suspect quite a few of my comments were never seen by anyone but me. Fuck you. If you're going to punish me I'd like to think I have a right to know why.

 

[RaikuFA]

Never ok. A good example is the guy who makes Dilbert apparently got shadowbanned on twitter because he's an open Republican. That's extremely dangerous.

 

[Catnip1024]

Surely the whole point of a ban is you are supposed to know you have done something wrong. This sounds like mods being dicks rather than a practice with any real purpose.

 

[shrekfan246]

If you're gonna stop someone from posting somewhere, you should just ban them. No reason to sneak around about it, frozen peaches don't apply to privately-owned websites and no amount of whining from internet crybabies will change that.

 

[CaitSeith]

this type of banning is used to enforce political views/ideas

Question: *is* or *may*? These bans are applied more to bots than to actual users (like the Escapist used to do in the Gaming Discussion for the spam bots forums before it was abandoned). Unless you're concerned about bots being silenced, this should be discussed in case by case.

 

[RaikuFA]

If you're gonna stop someone from posting somewhere, you should just ban them. No reason to sneak around about it, frozen peaches don't apply to privately-owned websites and no amount of whining from internet crybabies will change that.

Frozen peaches?

 

[DoPo]

I guess I am the second person who voted "yes". However, I would like to explain - I don't think this is an entirely black or white issue - it's not "it's always allowed" or "it's never allowed". I've lived back in the day of IRC and mute was one of the options you could slap somebody with. I've seen shadow banning used in some forums, as well. It can work, but there are considerations:

- scope of community - it's definitely easier to handle shadow bans with smaller communities. Something like Reddit seems way too big for this to be an effective measure.
- length of the shadow ban - in my experience, it works best as a temporary measure. Maybe up to a day or a few but it can also be just several hours. It's essentially there to temporarily shut up somebody. In IRC, it prevents flooding, in forums it works absolutely great against trolls, as nobody gets to feed them.
- reasoning for administering it - there also needs to be a reason to hand out a shadow ban as opposed to a different measure. The reasons are honestly not a lot but it's overall a benevolent measure. You could have new users start off like this until their first post is reviewed. For deterring trolls, slapping them with one usually makes them move away soon. In all cases, there is something to be gained by the shadow ban that isn't if you just suspend or straight ban a person. And whatever it is, it's only reinforced by the other two considerations - in a smaller community it's way easier to evaluate individual circumstances and the appropriate length of the shadow ban.

So, that's why I voted "yes" - it can be acceptable. At the same time, it's not always acceptable.

Whether or not Reddit has been abusing it, I don't know. As I said, though, I do think that Reddit does not really seem the place to have this.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

This type of ban should strictly be used for spam bots and no other kind of user; but it is helpful against bots.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I've not heard of this practice before, but it sounds idiotic. Surely the idea of a ban is to punish the offender, but that doesn't work if they don't even know they're being punished.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Honestly, sounds like a good idea to me. All the practical effect of banning someone, with some mild assurance that they won't realize it and spoof their IP or simply ban-jump. People can't feed trolls if the trolls are invisible, inaudible, and intangible.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Honestly, sounds like a good idea to me. All the practical effect of banning someone, with some mild assurance that they won't realize it and spoof their IP or simply ban-jump. People can't feed trolls if the trolls are invisible, inaudible, and intangible.

This is how I feel. As long as the mod in question is doing it for the right reason it could actually be a better way to get some rule-breaking asswipe from posting

All the other things you guys are worried about can still happen with regular bans, so the onus should be on the moderator themselves, not the tool they use

Edit: Also, none of us should have replied to this topic to make the OP think they were shadow-banned. We missed the perfect prank opportunity...

 

[Pyrian]

Surely the idea of a ban is to punish the offender...

No, it's to protect the site. Even insofar as punishment is intended, that punishment is intended to protect the site. With a bot or troll that's basically acting like a bot, a shadowban is potentially preferable to chasing them across swarms of new accounts.

Using a shadowban to silence dissent is of course icky, but then so is overtly banning dissent. It's just a tool.

If you really want to have fun, you could have a whole "limbo" wherein the shadowbanned users could see each others' posts, and new users could see new shadowbanned posts. Makes the whole schema that much less detectable.

 

[Whitbane]

It's a disgusting measure to silence people who don't agree with them. Twitter is a shithole for doing it, and I hope it comes back to bite them in the ass.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

No. Not acceptable.
I would compare it to Police and Secret Police.
Even in those cases where it could potentially be used for good, why not do it aboveboard?

 

[Pyrian]

Even in those cases where it could potentially be used for good, why not do it aboveboard?

'Cause then they just jump the ban. That's the primary point.

 

[tippy2k2]

I had an absolute hard NO on this issue until...

Honestly, sounds like a good idea to me. All the practical effect of banning someone, with some mild assurance that they won't realize it and spoof their IP or simply ban-jump. People can't feed trolls if the trolls are invisible, inaudible, and intangible.

That's actually kind of genius and I now kind of wish it was something we could do here. I never really saw how a "shadowban" could be a good thing but your point gives me an asterix to put next to my NO...

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Surely the idea of a ban is to punish the offender...

No, it's to protect the site. Even insofar as punishment is intended, that punishment is intended to protect the site. With a bot or troll that's basically acting like a bot, a shadowban is potentially preferable to chasing them across swarms of new accounts.

Using a shadowban to silence dissent is of course icky, but then so is overtly banning dissent. It's just a tool.

If you really want to have fun, you could have a whole "limbo" wherein the shadowbanned users could see each others' posts, and new users could see new shadowbanned posts. Makes the whole schema that much less detectable.

Well when you put it like that I suppose that makes sense.

 

[shrekfan246]

Frozen peaches?

A term I find amusing that mocks the idea of hiding behind some very incorrect ideas of what free speech means and covers as a defense for one's inability to not make posts on websites that aren't against said website's rules.

Probably actually more recognizable as "freeze peach", but I'm not as fond of that one because it doesn't fit into normal English as well.

Basically, free speech isn't protected on a website like The Escapist, or Twitter, or Reddit, or most other online places, so anything you say can be moderated, edited, or deleted at the discretion of the people running the place.

EDIT: Or rather, free speech likely is protected on many websites, but "free speech" meaning the ability to say whatever you want, however you want, whenever you want, without consequences isn't.