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posted ago by axolotl_peyotl ago by axolotl_peyotl +460 / -14

At least, it was the straw...

This morning I was given a "permanent suspension" (wtf, isn't that an oxymoron?) after 10+ years on reddit.

I was easily one of the most prolific posters in the history of /r/conspiracy, in addition to being top mod. I spent a shit ton of time on that place, not gonna lie. Fortunately, I saw this coming and only last week I archived and copied some of my best threads here on conspiracies.win (phew).

Despite being one of the most shilled and harassed accounts on reddit, I was really careful about not flying afoul of the admins.

I learned this lesson the hard way a couple of years ago when I casually used the phrase "shoot the messenger" when describing a whistleblower getting unfairly punished. I received my first warning ever from the admins for "inciting violence" for literally using a common metaphor!

It's hard though when entire communities (like TMOR) constantly feature threads with thousands of upvotes telling folks to mass report my account to the admins.

Fast forward to one day before the election in November, and I received my first suspension ever on reddit, and for 7 days. No reason was given for the suspension, though I suspect it had to do with using an archive.org link of a ZeroHedge article, a url which had just been banned sitewide a week prior.

I honestly didn't realize that using archive.org like this was against the TOS, but whatever...I stopped doing that and just abandoned ZH altogether.

And then yesterday I received a warning for sharing a tweet from (blue check) Kyle Becker about the protestors yesterday using their Constitutional rights. It wasn't remotely inflammatory, but I took heed of the warning and noted to myself that I wouldn't share tweets like that anymore.

This morning, I received a final warning and then immediate suspension for a self post I called "night of the digital long knives" in reference to the big tech crackdown we're currently going through. There was no call to violence, and I'm assuming the admins used a similar "semantic" justification for the warning and then ban.

Their claim that I've received "multiple" warnings for infractions in the past is absurd on its face, and I guarantee you they won't be transparent about them, because I've literally just detailed the complete extent of disciplinary action taken against my account in 10 years.

That brings us to Italygate:

People are beginning to wonder what happened to the Italygate post.

Now, over the years I've gotten really good at telling which conspiracies drive the shills bonkers. I post nonsensical conspiracies all the time...it's fun to speculate, duh!

The actual nonsense conspiracies get ignored, but the juicy conspiracies get buried, and a keen and trained eye can easily spot the difference.

I first posted an Italygate thread on /r/conspiracy a day after christmas...one week later I posted another and via search found only one other thread on the sub on italygate...folks weren't really posting it at all.

I soon noticed a very aggressive brigade pattern on italygate threads, prompting me, naturally, to post way more. And they got way more buried.

So I stickied one. It's my ultimate trump card and I think my becoming increasingly brazen with it was my undoing (which is fine, great way to go tbh).

What happened after stickying it was very different. There were 30 awards last I checked...easily a recent record on /r/conspiracy and a record for me in my entire history...and over 1,000 comments.

...and it was firmly at 0 points...AND the #1 most controversial thread on /r/all if you sorted by "controversial".

Not only that, but it was an extremely active thread. After 2 days I was still getting multiple comments per hour, and mostly from non-conspiracy users shitting on me, the sub, or the post.

This was more than just a typical SRD/TMOR brigade too...there were MANY italian speakers to a very strange degree...the weird thing is some said this was COMPLETELY true (they seemed genuine), and others were throwing very obvious ad hominems and forum slide attempts directed at their distaste for former Italian PM in question, and how the story couldn't be true because he was so incompetent or some nonsense like that.

Something different was happening to that thread, and therefore in can only be assumed that something different was happening with the story.

Here's where it gets juicy. Allegedly, a signed affidavit was delivered to congress exposing italygate yesterday at 1pm, around the same time the building was breached.

And then when Congress resumed, a Senator started talking about republicans believing "reddit conspiracies"...

FULL STOP.

This is a HUGE red flag.

What reddit conspiracies? When have any conspiracies on reddit gained traction lately? When has reddit been in the news? The boston bombing was 7 years ago, but when have "reddit conspiracies" been in the news recently enough for that to be a remotely relevant phrase on the senate floor?

During the entire crazy events over the last few days, the Italygate thread was stickied.

Were her remarks an attempt to "get ahead of the story" so to speak?

Where they anticipating italygate being brought up during the hearing at some point, perhaps, and her remarks were meant to preemptively discredit it?

...but it never came up because they were able to scare enough senators to limit actual debate on the states, so the appeal to "reddit conspiracies" wasn't necessary.

What if the plan was, if italygate was brought up by the GOP, to say "you mean the story at the top of reddit conspiracies right now"?

Even if that scenario is too specific, you can NOT tell me that unilaterally removing the (contentious) head moderator of /r/conspiracy less than 12 hours after the phrase "reddit conspiracies" is evoked on the Senate floor is NOT connected.

And now I've been removed from the /r/conspiracy mod team and my italygate sticky taken down.

Interestingly, I was not removed from /r/ufos or any of the other subs I moderate, and the admins explicitly instructed the current /r/conspiracy team not to add me back under another account (wouldn't want to, good fucking riddance).

TLDR:

  • I pinned a thread on /r/conspiracy saying Obama/ex-Italian PM stole the 2020 election, with receipts

  • it was brigaded more than almost any thread I've ever seen on reddit

  • evidence of this theory was allegedly delivered to congress yesterday

  • congress was breached, disrupting the ability to present evidence when they reconvened

  • senator warns about "reddit conspiracies" on senate floor

  • within 12 hours, the head moderator (me) of the /r/conspiracy sub is removed

  • pinned italygate thread is taken down by remaining mods