Reddit Bans 11-Year Account for GPL Game Post, Testing the EU's DSA (reddit.com)
- Reference: 0184925006
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/08/11/0532213/reddit-bans-11-year-account-for-gpl-game-post-testing-the-eus-dsa
- Source link: https://www.reddit.com/user/oe1feu/
> On July 26, I posted a single announcement in r/backgammon: [2]GNU Backgammon for Android , GPLv3, the first standalone backgammon engine on F-Droid. Reddit's spam filter removed the post and permanently banned my 11-year, 30,000-karma account -- the result is publicly visible at [3]reddit.com/user/OE1FEU . To this day, Reddit has given no reason whatsoever, although [4]Article 17 of the EU's Digital Services Act makes a statement of reasons mandatory. The only appeal channel is a 250-character web form that sends no confirmation and has never been answered; Reddit's own help text admits: "you may not have received a message to your inbox." A GDPR export of 11 years of data came to 7.2 MB; every post was truncated after a few lines, with zero data about the ban decision.
>
> So I spent one day escalating through every mechanism the EU provides: certified out-of-court dispute settlement at Austria's RTR, complaints with the Austrian and Dutch Digital Services Coordinators, the data protection authority (citing the [5]ECJ's SCHUFA ruling on automated decisions), noyb, and Austria's consumer association. Bonus finding: the European Commission's DSA Transparency Database contains 14,067 Reddit statements of reasons for that week -- none for my ban -- and the Commission's own feedback form limits reports to 500 characters and crashed with a 500 Server Error. Is the DSA enforceable for ordinary users, or just paperwork?
[1] https://slashdot.org/~DF5JT
[2] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.clavierhaus.gnubg/
[3] https://www.reddit.com/user/OE1FEU/
[4] https://www.eu-digital-services-act.com/Digital_Services_Act_Article_17.html
[5] https://iapp.org/news/a/key-takeaways-from-the-cjeus-recent-automated-decision-making-rulings
This is a bit too new to tell (Score:5, Informative)
The DSA has teeth, but bureaucracy is slow. It may also be necessary to level some impressive fines under the DSA before it becomes respected by the usual US social media asshole companies. If you do, say, a GDPR data request (which does include data on why something was banned, demonetized, etc.) even YouTube reacts fast, because they all know this can get extremely expensive and can get them shut down in Europe if they mess it up too often.
Re:This is a bit too new to tell (Score:5, Insightful)
> The DSA has teeth, but bureaucracy is slow.
Which is often intentional.
We live in 2026. You can order an artillery or drone strike in Ukraine from a tablet and it'll be delivered within minutes. Data processing speeds are essentially instant for data sets not on LLM sizes. We have automation everywhere when it suits the right people. e.g. that speeding ticket you received for going 12 km/h over the limit? No human ever so much as saw that. Full automated process. Takes 6-12 weeks. Why? Because otherwise you might still remember how fast you were actually going or that you weren't even in that street on that day, and fight it. Same principle here: The slower the bureaucracy, the more people will just give up and go away. It's a self-regulating system to reduce the number of inquiries to the amount that the public servants can comfortably process.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Eh, it's kind of like a terminal that makes time between login attempts to prevent a brute force attack.
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> We have automation everywhere when it suits the right people. e.g. that speeding ticket you received for going 12 km/h over the limit? No human ever so much as saw that. Full automated process. Takes 6-12 weeks. Why? Because otherwise you might still remember how fast you were actually going or that you weren't even in that street on that day, and fight it. Same principle here: The slower the bureaucracy, the more people will just give up and go away. It's a self-regulating system to reduce the number of inquiries to the amount that the public servants can comfortably process.
My dudes, the system, our system(s) aren't perfect. I'm with you, the issue is the volume of shit courts have to deal with, and the solution is not super high speed automated dispute resolution systems to deal with even more automated speeding tickets, it's to lower the volume of bullshit, and less speeding tickets that do nothing good for anyone.
But complaining about getting in front of a judge to discuss how The Internet Moderators have treated you, what the fuck are you doing with your life. Again, the p
Re:This is a bit too new to tell (Score:4)
Being silenced inappropriately by clanker mods is far more frustrating than getting nailed for plenty of minor "real" crimes we consider legitimate. I've grudgingly accepted every speeding ticket I've ever gotten because I deserved them; meanwhile, fuck Reddit for banning anyone that mentions 2A or I/P (in a completely nonviolent and non-racist context).
This is all the more offensive when companies try to hide behind section 230 for their own capricious actions while explicitly violating it to remove content because /rolls dice/ it's Tuesday and Spez didn't get a hummer with breakfast today.
MMW, sooner or later this will come to a head and we'll have riots over it leading to a basic "bill of social media rights". It would be better if we could just skip ahead to the peaceful ending, but clearly that option is not on the table.
Re: (Score:2)
> The DSA has teeth, but bureaucracy is slow. It may also be necessary to level some impressive fines under the DSA before it becomes respected by the usual US social media asshole companies. If you do, say, a GDPR data request (which does include data on why something was banned, demonetized, etc.) even YouTube reacts fast, because they all know this can get extremely expensive and can get them shut down in Europe if they mess it up too often.
Play bureaucratic games, Win bureaucratic prizes.
Similar issue (Score:5, Interesting)
I created a throwaway account, as is normal practice on Reddit when you want to ask something without it being tied to your main account, and it was quickly perma banned, and a 7 day ban applied to my main account.
I submitted a DSAR under GDPR rules, and like DF5JT I just got some truncated crap and none of the information I actually wanted.
Currently going through legal action with Reddit over this. In their initial defence they admitted that the ban was automated, and when I appealed a human looked at it and confirmed it. The ban was for being a bot, which obviously I'm not, so they admitted they made a mistake that really human review should have fixed. It appears that they also deleted the data that I asked for, which is a fairly severe GDPR violation. On top of that, they tried to gaslight me about it, for example by showing fake login errors and a fake password reset process, in order to supposedly access the DSAR data, when in fact they had already deleted both the account and data.
Currently waiting for mediation to be scheduled, basically a 1 hour phone session where an intermediary tries to see if there is a way we can settle without it getting to court. Given they have admitted they screwed up, and have deleted the data I asked for, and seem to have a policy of abusing users who submit a DSAR...
Re:Similar issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Reddit is owned by greedy corporate asshole hipsters in SF (including Sam Altman of OpenAI) who don't give 2 flying fucks about EU regulations, liberal democratic values like due process, transparency, or benefit of the doubt, or human review that doesn't involve bullshit justifications to double-down on the original, undisclosed "pronouncement" of the AI.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, but at least if I prevail they will have to compensate me for their asshole techbro policies.
Re:Similar issue (Score:4, Funny)
> Reddit is owned by greedy corporate asshole hipsters in SF (including Sam Altman of OpenAI) who don't give 2 flying fucks about EU regulations
They may not care about EU regulations but they'll give a damn about the fines as they're turnover based and not profit based. The wheels grind slow but when the EU thinks you're a scofflaw they grind mighty fine.
Re: (Score:1)
> Reddit is owned by greedy corporate asshole hipsters ... who don't give 2 flying fucks about EU regulations,
methinks he's referring to uk's gdpr, as eu regulations don't apply in uk.
> liberal democratic values like due process, transparency, or benefit of the doubt
oh, neither does the eu, owned by greedy elites and run by self-righteous professional hypocrites.
Re: Similar issue (Score:2)
That's true to a certain degree in all countries. But let's not pretend that the couch fire that is the EU is comparable to the entire neighbourhood burned to ashes that is the USA.
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methinks he's referring to uk's gdpr, as eu regulations don't apply in uk.
Most of them actually do apply in the UK.
As the UK did not cancel/remove/replace them after Brexit.
Lets guess: you are actually a britt, lives in UK, voted for Brexit - and does not know this?
Re: (Score:1)
> Most of them actually do apply in the UK.
no, they don't.
> As the UK did not cancel/remove/replace them after Brexit.
yes, they did. check the european union withdrawal act.
what they did was copy (often verbatim) a lot of eu regulations (including gdpr) to address the legal vacuum after the brexit rush but those are now uk regulations, and the european court of justice has zero say about them.
> Lets guess: you are actually a britt, lives in UK, voted for Brexit - and does not know this?
wrong again. no need to guess about you, you're an open (blank and badly preserved) book.
Re:Similar issue (Score:4)
Best of luck to you, and I hope Reddit gets the screws put to them bigtime.
I don't know much about this stuff. My first thought is that the law should force companies like Reddit to have a DSAR banner on every page their site serves . It would show the total number of DSARs filed to date, and have a link to a page listing ALL of them, both pending and resolved - with personally identifiable stuff redacted, of course.
If legislation forced such businesses to make every gaslighting move blatantly public, maybe the behaviour would improve.
Re: (Score:3)
Reddit, like many companies, relies on having an automated system to process DSARs. You make a request and it shits out a zip file with some data in text formats like XML. Unfortunately that data is incomplete, and doesn't cover anything that isn't available by simply looking at your account page. You also can't get it if the account has been deleted.
Unfortunately the UK's regulator is useless, so legal action is the only way to get this stuff resolved.
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I worked for a company that implemented the "Right to Know" for the CCPA. I can assure you that the data they sent to users was not anywhere near everything that was required under the law.
Re:Similar issue (Score:5, Informative)
Reddit explicitly allows multiple accounts: [1]https://support.reddithelp.com... [reddithelp.com]
[1] https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-Is-it-ok-to-create-multiple-accounts
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Moreover, the more you post on Reddit, the chance of getting banned in one or more subs approaches 100%, and the only way around it, at least outside of the EU, is to create a new account.
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Yes, but has your main account ever been suspend before or banned on a sub?
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I don't think so. Maybe 1 sub, you know what Reddit moderators are like. Actually, yeah, I think it was the doolally lot over on some nuclear power sub. But I blocked it and didn't try to access it - the ban happened before I even had a chance to.
Re: Similar issue (Score:2)
If any of your accounts ever receives a ban, then posting under any of them is considered "circumventing" the ban and grounds for removal. As for damages, good luck. Under US law you have to actually prove damages, which are zero. I don't know if reddit has any legal presence in the UK or not, that's most likely the only chance you have of getting anywhere with them. The biggest issue with reddit is that random mods in subs can basically kick you off the entire site by reporting posts as general reddit ru
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A ban from one sub. Most people have one if they have spent any amount of time on Reddit. It's not considered circumvention, unless it's used to do actual circumvention of the sub ban, which it wasn't.
Reddit has a corporation in the UK, who are the ones defending this.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice. Way to make the world a better place.
Enforceable for ordinary users? (Score:2)
No laws are enforceable for ordinary users. They are enforceable for courts. The ordinary user would be required to use an enforcement mechanism such as a government commission (which seems to have failed you) or through a legal process such as suing the company directly, ideally filing lawsuit against them in Amsterdam where they are based.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Meh, there are other ways. Post a story on slashdot for instance.
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I come here for the dupes. Repetition is the key to retention!
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Maybe they should post it on Reddit instead with a new account, where someone who can actually fix the problem might see it?
Although, knowing Reddit, it will detect that he's coming in from the same IP or computer as the banned account and auto ban that one as well. So... maybe use a VPN and a different browser first, assuming that's still allowed.
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No, just post it on slashdot.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
> No laws are enforceable for ordinary users. They are enforceable for courts. The ordinary user would be required to use an enforcement mechanism such as a government commission (which seems to have failed you) or through a legal process such as suing the company directly, ideally filing lawsuit against them in Amsterdam where they are based.
Lawsuits about Reddit. Government control of Reddit. I'm just a dumb 'Murrican, but maybe Europeans aren't going to stop until they have total government control of every single aspect of their people, only allowed to urinate 5 times a day, lest fines result. And to see people in here seriously discussing it causes me many eye rolls. I've never ate so much popcorn this early in the day. Which makes me wonder, is there an EU rule on how popcorn must be popped?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Might want to slow down on that popcorn anyway with your country's current health care system.
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> Might want to slow down on that popcorn anyway with your country's current health care system.
I'll take non-sequiturs for 1000 Bob.
Re: (Score:2)
> Yet another year goes by and we did NOT have 175k people die like in the EU.
Everybody's health care has it's problems, but when I check for a comparison I get.
> U.S. life expectancy is roughly 79.0 years, while the European Union average is higher at about 81.7 years
so even on average you'd be better off in the EU.
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Shows how little you know.
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It's not government control though, it's people forcing the judicial branch (DSA) to help individual user to have some control over their online life against IT companies. Some IT companies have budgets larger than some small European nations. European users have rights when companies do their advertisement business in Europe. This is giving individuals more options, not less. What's the alternative? Give up and let foreign companies do whatever they want with no recourse?
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> It's not government control though, it's people forcing the judicial branch (DSA) to help individual user to have some control over their online life against IT companies. Some IT companies have budgets larger than some small European nations. European users have rights when companies do their advertisement business in Europe. This is giving individuals more options, not less. What's the alternative? Give up and let foreign companies do whatever they want with no recourse?
You solution is to force other nations to obey th European citizens? If you hate American companies, why would these intelligent EU citizens simply make use to teh American companies illegal, they would then have everything as they want it to be. What use of Reddit is critical in Europe?
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> I've never ate so much popcorn
What is it with Yanks and conjugation!? *eaten*
Re: (Score:2)
>> I've never ate so much popcorn
> What is it with Yanks and conjugation!? *eaten*
Me flunk English? That's unpossible!
Re: Enforceable for ordinary users? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is an asymmetrical relationship between companies and users, in terms of the resources they can throw at the problem and the consequences of their actions. Reddit, or Google or Apple can destroy years of your content for no good reason and not even provide a person you can talk to, meanwhile they require contact information from you and happily use it to send marketing messages you don't want.
Fixing the asymmetry is a great use of government regulation! As an American, I think it's super weird that you think in a country "by the people and for the people", Reddit should be able to write the rules and tell the people where to head in.
Re: (Score:2)
> I think it's super weird that you think in a country "by the people and for the people", Reddit should be able to write the rules and tell the people where to head in.
Most people are prosperity worshippers. They think anyone successful deserves to be successful. Therefore they think corporations are great and we should listen to what they tell us. They've also never known anything else.
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> I'm just a dumb 'Murrican, but maybe Europeans aren't going to stop until they have total government control of every single aspect of their people
Not people, companies . The EU does not have an equivalent to the U.S. Citizens United ruling that declares that companies are people.
Do you think they should?
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>> I'm just a dumb 'Murrican, but maybe Europeans aren't going to stop until they have total government control of every single aspect of their people
> Not people, companies . The EU does not have an equivalent to the U.S. Citizens United ruling that declares that companies are people.
> Do you think they should?
I think that the EU should write its own social media, shopping and websites. Then you can dictate every aspect of them. NO reddit, no Google, No Apple, no Facebook, nothing that people in here claim Europeans do not want.
Why is that not clear? You want total control, set up a system that allows total control. Geoblock countries that are not obeying. Then make it a crime to use a VPN to illegally access the offenders. Really not that difficult.
I'm acknowledged as stupid, but I geoblock many European
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> I geoblock many European countries on my websites.
As could Reddit, Google, Apple, Facebook and so on. But they prefer the occasional fines to pulling out of Europe. That's their choice and I think we should respect it.
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What you're defending here is Reddit being shit.
Why would you defend shit?
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No one said government control. Laws are in place everywhere, the only way an end user can enforce that law is by taking it to court. That's not European, that's normal.
> I've never ate so much popcorn this early in the day.
Have you considered replacing the popcorn with reading comprehension? Or is being outraged about things you make up in your head your drug of choice?
Reddit (Score:2)
I solved this problem a long time ago by never using Reddit. After Digg killed themselves, the downward slide came quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
Which makes me wonder, is there an EU rule on how popcorn must be popped?
Most certainly.
The temperature to make it, is limited, to avoid producing nitrosamine.
Simple example, there are probably more.
What is your farking problem with rules?
It is tiring to sue one for compensation of damage who should have known before that he is producing damage.
So we we make a damn rule, so we do not have to sue, but can point at the rule.
Simple.
Get a clue.
Re: (Score:1)
You're right.
Europeans are clearly chasing the dream of gubmint prescribed urination breaks.
That was also my take-away from TFS.
Re: (Score:1)
Technically a court can not enforce a law. They can say anything they want, but what would happen if no one listened?
Armed people working for the government enforce laws. They are the ones who take your freedom when you do not listen.
Only the court can help (Score:1)
This kind of claim can only be made through the courts and/or with the help of a lawyer via fax machine. Support emails never yield the desired result, you can safely forget about customer support. Experienced.....
Welcome to technofeudalism! (Score:2)
Where opaque, proprietary algorithms decide without evidence or appeal to instaban long-time, constructive users for "reasons".
Never try to build an elaborate homestead in the surf zone of an ocean controlled by some mercurial megacorp.
Reddit can't ban anyone (Score:1)
As long as accounts are free to create and have no ties to your real identity. VPN, Ip changes etc prevent true ability to ban anyone. I may or may not of been perma banned more than once.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about that. When I try to access Reddit from one of my work computers, which have Microsoft Global Secure Access installed, Reddit blocks me and says I need to login with an enterprise account. Reddit could do the same with any known VPN exit nodes.
And it's annoying. I just want to see a piece of technical information that was posted, I have no need or desire to login, and no account to login with.
Re: (Score:2)
That sounds like the MS package is doing the blocking, not Reddit.
I don't understand why this is considered... (Score:3)
I don't understand why this is considered news. A dude got his Reddit account for self-promotion. And why the hell are adults pretending that an old Reddit account with some karma has any kind of real world value?
This is forum drama. WTF is going on here? How many bots are being used to make this blog appear active? Because there's no way any human being sees a conversation about a reddit ban and and thinks "this clearly has an overwhelming public interest".
Re: I don't understand why this is considered... (Score:2)
This is not about this particular ban. It is about empowering individuals and constraining bad behavior of large organizations that have an outsize influence on marketplace accessibility.
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The snark in OP text surely advises this guy doesn't need to be empowered ... in fact , can he be wafted to sound-proof environs ?
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Agreed that this is forum drama. It sucks to lose an account but nothing of value was actually lost. You don't really own your accounts in the first place. Imagine the uproar of people posting on Reddit about how they lost their /. account. There would literally be tens of people outraged!!!
Reddit doesn't owe you anything. Facebook doesn't owe you anything. Twitter doesn't owe you anything. Slashdot doesn't owe you anything. Your free contributions are what they sell. If you don't like it, then go
Re: (Score:2)
> Reddit doesn't owe you anything. Facebook doesn't owe you anything. Twitter doesn't owe you anything. Slashdot doesn't owe you anything.
The law says they do owe me something.
Turn your brain on.
> On second thought, I think Bill Gates still owes me $100 for helping him test his email tracking program back in 1998 when I forwarded that email for him.
You do know that wasn't Bill Gates, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed that this is forum drama. It sucks to lose an account but nothing of value was actually lost.
How can you write such nonsense?
Reddit doesn't owe you anything. Facebook doesn't owe you anything. Twitter doesn't owe you anything. Slashdot doesn't owe you anything.
They do, idiot.
They have the obligation to treat me as a human being, and not randomly delete my stuff and then pretend they did not do anything wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
It's news because:
1) Reddit is shown to be heavy-handed (probably not especially new information to many people, but hey)
2) That the European laws designed to level the playing field between ordinary user and mega corps aren't working properly. $mega_corp is essentially half-arsing the responses they're legally required to give. If that catches the eye of the authorities, then it could mean mega fines to $mega_corp.
Mega fines are kinda useful to know about, even if you're not in the EU. Those fines have alt
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If being denied from posting on a forum with a decades old account isn't news here, then I don't know what this site is even for anymore man.
Re: (Score:2)
The issue is that Reddit is not complaint with GDPR rules. It's actually bigger than Reddit, because a lot of companies are not compliant because compliance would reveal how their automated systems work.
Re: I don't understand why this is considered... (Score:2)
The GDPR has serious jurisdictional boundary issues. People in the EU need to understand that anything outside of their own country is "use at your own risk" if there's not a formal legal agreement (treaties, etc.) and to stop trying to push their local regulations globally.
Re: (Score:2)
Reddit has a subsidiary in the UK. They also claim that their Swiss operation is responsible for data protection in Europe, but I doubt that the court will buy that. It's an attempt to make it harder to exercise GDPR rights, while still doing business in the UK.
Reddit has a subsidiary in the UK. (Score:2)
If you mean the island comprised of England, Scotland and Whales, then they left the EU a few years ago.
There is another UK, (it is East of Poland) but Tsar Vladimir insists they are part of Russia.
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We still have GDPR and Reddit still claims that their Swiss outfit is the one to deal with it. As I said, I doubt the court will buy that.
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> why the hell are adults pretending that an old Reddit account with some karma has any kind of real world value?
Nobody is pretending you're an adult. There's no value in that.
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This has zero to do with what value anyone thinks the account has. The point is there are laws that are supposed to provide end users some form of control over their lives which are otherwise solely dictated by corporations. Focusing on reddit itself seems like you completely missed the point of the story.
Replace Reddit account with, your small business's Google Account. Does your complaint still hold?
Value (Score:1)
And nothing of value was lost?
EU has a DSA? (Score:2)
What is the Democratic Socialists of America doing in EUrope?
Think that's a violation ? X says "Hold my beer!" (Score:2)
https://x.com/shopnilrone/status/2078860355233824809
https://postory.io/blog/twitter-suspended-appeal
https://inspiretothrive.com/twitter-jail/
Welcome to perma ban (Score:1)
Reddit permanently banned my account (over 12 years old) and for two years now I've been unable to create a new account that lasts more than a few minutes before being banned. They claimed I "advocated violence" when all I did was write that I looked forward to scrolling past a certain orange madman's obituary. For two years, now, I've been unable to create a new account that lasts more than a few minutes before being banned, regardless of using VPN, different email addresses, etc. Not sure how they trac
Idiotic AI (Score:2)
I got banned for telling an IT worker asking about career advice to steer clear of Indian contract companies because of my personal experience and their general reputation for ripping people off, not paying them, lying about it being 1099 income, being understaffed and underpaid, etc. That got a 7 day ban that was actually lifted on appeal. Then I got banned again because I made a comment about H1B's affecting the job market. It was one VERY inoffensive sentence.
Reddit have 11 year-long accounts? (Score:3)
I thought they required you to create a new account every time you log in.
Though that may have been 20 years ago. Last time I saw a reason to go there.
This is just modern 'computing.' (Score:2)
Sometimes things work but most of the time something will go wrong.
Usually it is something small, until you need to get something done and keep running into poorly managed computer services.
Computers are convenient until they aren't, then you waste time tracking down a human that can't fix it except to say 'you are screwed.'
Be Patient (Score:2)
Was it signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters?
Nationality checks out (Score:2)
He really is following the regulations, that's good!
Re: (Score:2)
Are Austrians famous for following the regulations?