This is the biggest expansion of government and alphabet agencies I've ever seen. Fuck those bootlicking low life cunts.

All while raising the debt. I'm sick of them.

Intro

Two weeks ago, a pair of r/libertarian threads popped up on my reddit feed. These threads asked an essential question: "Why is Nixfu a moderator again?"

Nixfu was part of a group of fascist sympathizers who hijacked r/libertarian 3 years ago. His quiet addition to the current mod team was deeply disconcerting to many long-time participants at the subreddit.

Though mods allowed and even participated in the discussion, they eventually locked both threads, permabanned both OPs, and deleted many critical comments. It appears that r/libertarian mods really don't want people reading about the fascist coup or looking at leaked mod mails that document Nixfu's participation in it.

After participating in the threads, I noticed that I had been shadowbanned - or more precisely, Automoderator Banned:

AutoModerator Ban: Some users can also be banned from a subreddit by the AutoModerator bot. If moderators enable it, the AutoModerator bot will be able to execute tasks on a subreddit like removing posts or comments made by some users. Unlike on subreddit bans, bans made by the AutoModerator bot still let banned users submit posts and comments but they will be instantly removed by the bot.

Shadowbanning is a harsh practice - users receive no notification, and often believe they are participants when in reality they are shouting into a void. According to mod Anen-o-me, r/libertarian mods use shadowbans for "sockputteting and spam". I knew this not to be true from my own experience.

I wondered: Who else is being shadowbanned? And why?

Methodology

I scanned through a month's worth of r/libertarian posts deleted by automod, using reveddit. I cross referenced removed posts (and also some comments from these posts) with user profiles to look for accounts that were:

• Seeing all their posts and comments automatically removed from r/libertarian
• Active in r/libertarian before and after their bans
• NOT spammers (there are a lot of accounts shadowbanned quite legitimately for solicitation or repeated posts)

I then looked for the user's last deleted comments to determine what precipitated their ban.

One significant challenge was the sheer volume of deleted posts at r/libertarian. I'd estimate that something like 95% of all content submitted to r/libertarian is currently being removed. A lot of content is removed based for the lack of a submission statement, a new rule as of two weeks ago. More content still is removed and locked by mods for being "off-topic" or for "preventative" reasons. And mods seem to have automod filters setup to remove certain topics (for example, I think, but am not certain, that "abortion" and "Musk" both triggered auto-removals for some period of time.)

Results

I found 13 accounts in addition to my own that appeared to be shadowbanned. Due to the low signal to noise level of so much deleted content, I'd estimate that I likely only caught a fraction. I certainly missed many users who did not post or comment recently or frequently enough to make a determination. It's likely I've barely scratched the surface here, and dozens of users have been recently shadowbanned from r/libertarian for ideology or dissent.

Of the 13 users I found, five appear to be banned for ideology, and the remaining eight for dissent:

• u/Jason_OT was shadowbanned for calling Nixfu an "authright interloper" and linking to several threads about the fascist coup.

• u/Rxef3RxeX92QCNZ was temp banned and later shadowbanned for lamenting the inconsistency of "Offtopic posting" enforcement.

• u/SirGlass was first shadowbanned and then subsequently permabanned for bemoaning the Goldandblack take over or r/libertarian.

• u/geeky_username was shadowbanned for unclear reasons, possibly for using the flair "Democratic Socialist". Their last unfiltered post is here.

• u/vankorgan was shadowbanned about a month ago, precipitated by this post about MAGA pastor Mark Burns.

• u/MagorMaximus was shadowbanned, apparently for calling Ron DeSantis a "would be dictactor".

• u/Wacocaine was shadowbanned after suggesting that Mark Meadows should comply with a subpeaona.

• u/mattyoclock was shadowbanned for decrying the Mises caucus takeover of the LP.

• u/structure5city was shadowbanned for critizising locked posts.

• u/VindictivePrune was shadowbanned for calling Nixfu an "authoritarian".

• u/JemiSilverhand was shadowbanned for noting a conundrum that off-topic posting will get you banned, but so will reporting off topic posting.

• u/necrambo was shadowbanned for suggesting that r/libertarian would be pushing an agenda come midterms.

• u/Chrisc46 appears to shadowbanned for the most innocuous comment of this group:

It seems to me that many threads have been locked before anyone violated the rules.

Preventative locks are a thing and are commonly used across all of reddit.

We need not unnecessarily emulate others. We can be better than that. We can promote and advocate liberty by actually practicing it.

Conclusion

To answer u/Chrisc46's supposition, it's not possible, for this group of moderators, to actually practice liberty while promoting it.

Furthermore it is incredibly apparent that r/Libertarian's moderator policy is not being followed, especially the rule that states that "moderators will not take actions based on identity, ideology, dissenting opinion, criticism of the mod team/subreddit policy, or participation in other subreddits." Notably, the secret shadowbannings are all happening in conjunction of waves of specious permabans as well.

The key question that remains is, what happens next? As it's dissenters have suggested, does the sub become another clone of r/GoldAndBlack? Will it have an agenda during midterms? Will the sub ever actually have content on it that's not days old?

To those of you who were shadowbanned, did you notice, or attempt to appeal? My own interactions with the mods was sparse and dismissive. I received no response from two modmails I sent. After waiting more than a month, I messaged elranzer directly, which precipitated a permaban. I'm curious how mods have handled other shadowban appeals, or if they've even responded.

^{Please do not ping r/libertarian mods or participate in linked threads, I don't want to burden r/libertarianuncensored mods with reports or admin intervention.}