rhaksw

Some comments here were already removed *for not being questions. I'm not sure why. It might be because the accounts do not have verified emails. u/mork wrote,

Your title is confusing. I believe you're trying to say that Reddit has removed user's comments but it's worded as if the users removed them and Reddit doesn't know about it.

Good point. I should have written "over 50% of Reddit users have been moderated without their knowledge."

I mention what apologists typically say here in the video. They need it for "bots/spam/trolls."

But only anonymous individuals will defend shadow moderation. Nobody will put their name behind it.

I've offered to record a debate about this subject with its most ardent defenders. All of them demur or decline.

And it's worth noting that this happens everywhere on the internet, not just Reddit. YouTube/Facebook/TikTok/Truth Social/Twitter all still do it to this day.

P.S. Automoderator does not automatically notify. It must be configured that way. I suspect the vast majority of removals are from automod. R/news silently removes 25% of comments because their authors haven't verified their email. I show evidence of that in a talk I gave last year. That's just one easy example I can point to. Other times, automod is configured to silently remove comments mentioning keywords like "mods" or links. Links to Reveddit are also often removed.

I don't see any impact yet, but Reddit did just announce changes are still going in over the next few weeks.

I wrote a more detailed answer about API usage here.

Yes, but if I discover a factual comment of mine was removed, I'll stop commenting in that group. So the problem is that the system does not show users the true status of their moderated comments.

That may be how groups got so large. Nobody knows they're being censored, so they don't move. Conversations are better with transparent moderation. People are more free to learn the rules through their own experience and migrate to other groups. It also builds trust with moderators, incentivizes good behavior over bad, and encourages more community involvement in moderation, something that is sorely needed.