I was permanently banned from a subreddit and temporarily banned from Reddit for 7 days. And I am pissed off.
So, what happened? Let me break it down for you as simply as possible.
Basically, I posted some comments in a subreddit. Those comments got me banned from that subreddit for seven days. Now, just to be clear, my comments were not hateful, not racist, and not the kind of offensive nonsense that could justifiably get me banned from Reddit altogether. They were just a bit snarky, a little sharp — let’s say they had a bit of an edge to them. And apparently, that was enough to get me banned for “toxicity.”
Fine. I accepted it. No problem.
Now, here is where things took a turn.
Today, while going through my notifications, I noticed one I had not replied to. I clicked on it, and it turned out to be a comment someone had left for me in that same subreddit where I was banned. But this comment was in an entirely different thread, totally unrelated to the discussion that got me banned in the first place.
And then I had a lapsus. For a moment, I completely forgot I had been banned. So I tried to reply to the comment, but the system would not let me. I kept clicking “send,” but my response would not go through.
Now, because of this lapsus, my brain did not make the connection: “Oh, I cannot reply because I am banned.” Instead, I assumed there was some kind of system glitch preventing me from responding.
So, in my infinite wisdom, I thought, “Screw it, I will just make another account and reply from there.” That way, I figured, I could get my response through despite what I assumed was just a Reddit bug.
Well, bad idea.
Shortly after, I got a notification saying: “You attempted to evade a ban, so now you are permanently banned from this subreddit.” And then, about thirty minutes later, I got another notification: “You have been temporarily suspended from Reddit for seven days.”
That is when it hit me: “What the hell did I just do?”
Because I had not actually intended to break the rules. I had not tried to get around the ban on purpose; I had just had a lapsus and completely forgotten I was banned in the first place! When I made that second account, it was not to dodge the ban, but because I genuinely thought there was a technical issue stopping me from replying.
But, well… here we are.
Now I am permanently banned from that subreddit and suspended from Reddit for a week.