I'm the creator of Reveddit, which shows that over 50% of Reddit users have removed comments they don't know about. AMA!

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."

How do you determine that users have been moderated without knowing about it? As far as I know, that's not something your tool can differentiate, because it can't tell exactly who removed a comment. Was it automod acting on a filter(which sends a message)? Was it a mod who took action, complete with form-letter notification? Was it the admins with their anti-hate team j/k they don't do anything ever, it wasn't them. Or was it the situation you're claiming, with rogue mods censoring users and not telling them? As of the last time I used your tool(and it is a useful tool, so thank you for that), these situations look identical on your interface. So how are you telling them apart?

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.

r/askscience removes absolutely huge numbers of posts in virtually every thread, even many that are factual and expound upon previous answers, or people asking reasonable followup questions. Many are done by the Automod but large numbers are still done manually.

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.

Since you seem to know about this.. Why is askscience seemingly so hostile and abusive to its community? I'm only vaguely aware of it from stumbling on comments like yours, but it's been enough to stop me from asking a few questions that I've had.

It's a shame because it's a great idea for a reddit sub. Do you know of another one that's good for asking science-type questions?

Why is askscience seemingly so hostile and abusive to its community

I would push back pretty strongly on this statement, but I am admittedly a moderator of that subreddit so I have a bit of bias. One of the challenge here is that in relation to claims like made further up this thread (e.g., "removes absolutely huge numbers of posts in virtually every thread, even many that are factual and expound upon previous answers") is that judging which claims are factual or not is actually pretty hard without a lot of domain expertise. There are mountains of answers that get posted on AskScience that are effectively half-remembered bits from a relevant introductory class or cobbled together from wikipedia, written by folks, who while genuinely trying to answer the question, are doing so without actual expertise. Many of these answers, if you're not an expert, seem fine, but if you are an expert, very often you'll easily recognize that many of these "factual" answers are over-simplified and actually wrong in fundamental and important ways. There are plenty of other subs that are more appropriate for getting simplified answers, but the entire point of the sub is to solicit in-depth answers from people with domain knowledge relevant for the question(s), so, we take a pretty strict view of removing answers that are not fully correct. The other thing of relevance is that generally, these decisions are made by mods with the expertise relevant for the question. Basically, any of us will remove obviously non useful comments / jokes /etc from any thread, but we pretty much stay out of removing borderline content outside of our areas of expertise.

I had a comment removed there the other day solely because I asked the original poster for further information in order to answer his query.

Lots of comments get caught by the auto-mod, for a variety of reasons (including the comment in question). In the future, if you think a removal is in error, you can send us a modmail.

From a practical standpoint, we have >26 million subscribers, hundreds of questions a day, and individual released questions will have 10s to 1000s of comments. Despite what our lengthy mod list suggests, we have a relatively small group of active moderators. Without relying on the auto-mod, the sub would be overrun with random stuff (most of the time, I really wish I couldn't see all of the things the auto-mod removes). We err on the side of overly aggressive auto-removal as it helps to prevent misinformation, but the auto-mod definitely removes things that don't need to be sometimes. We try to correct when we come across, but we rarely have the people-power to continually check and re-vet new comments in all the threads.

Lots of comments get caught by the auto-mod, for a variety of reasons (including the comment in question). In the future, if you think a removal is in error, you can send us a modmail.

Does askscience notify about all removals? Most subs do not, and in those cases users will not know to send mod mail.

I also wonder if you've ever considered that you may have 26 million subscribers because users don't know they're being moderated.

R/news silently removes 25% of comments because their authors haven't verified their email.

Thank you for mentioning this! I noticed I was "shadow banned" from the sub and couldn't figure why, nor had I ever been contacted by mods.

No sweat.

By the way, they justify this by putting a tiny note in the sidebar that only appears on desktop. And even then, if your browser window is too small, the sidebar is not displayed.

I mentioned here about how platforms or moderators sometimes point to the Santa Clara Principles as justification for their use of shadow moderation. R/news tiny rule in the sidebar is similar to that.

Platforms today say they want to give users transparency, but it's not true transparency. When they say transparency, they're talking about fine print in their policies. That, they say, gives them permission to remove content without notification. And they're right, legally speaking, but not morally.

That assessment is based on my experience using Reddit for years and other users' reactions to discovering Reveddit. They are overwhelmingly surprised that removals work this way.

It's also worth noting that no published study has undertaken to discover how often this happens. The widespread use of secretive removals has gone unquestioned, and that is interesting in itself.

I know of one book from 2011 called "Building Successful Online Communities" that recommends "disguising a gag". It was authored by professors from MIT and Carnegie Mellon.

There are several ways to disguise a gag or ban. For example, in a chat room, the gagged person may see an echo of everything she types, but her comments may not be displayed to others in the room. The gagged person may think that everyone is just ignoring her.

Another possibility is to display a system error message suggesting that the site is temporarily out of service, but only show it to the gagged person. [source]

If they did some assessment to come to this conclusion, then it did not amply consider potential abuses.

Automoderator alerted me that my comment was removed because it was not a question (as per the rules of this sub).

Good to know, thanks!

The few times I mentioned you site in reddit comments, my comments were ALWAYS shadowbanned, in various subs, yes. I made it a habit to write re()ve()ddit or something similar.

I'm positively baffled you are able to do an AmA, so, thank you for the tool you created, it's helpful in a myriad of cases for so many people.

On another note, may I ask if there's a particular reason no hardlinks pointing to reddit.com are given when your site displays threads, be they shadowbanned or not? When I want to give a link to someone pointing to a reddit sub (in "see? Your comment's invisible now"), I have to manually edit the URL and sometimes get it wrong.

Reddit really loves shadowbanning things. If you're going to delete my comment at least tell me???

It’s just powerhungry mods seeing a comment they personally don’t like and using the shadowban button instead of the downvote button.

Edit: By shadowban button, I mean “remove” button… which does not notify you that your comment has been deleted and if you look at your comment, it still shows up, but to everyone else, the comment is gone.

It’s just powerhungry mods seeing a comment they personally don’t like and using the shadowban

There's no such thing as a shadowban button for mods, admin absolutely have that though

There's no such thing as a shadowban button for mods, admin absolutely have that though

Mods can shadowban via automoderator. They renamed it to "bot ban", but it's still functionally a subreddit shadowban. For more details, see Reveddit's FAQ on What is a shadowban?

I'm baffled too. This is maybe the second time a prominent post has remained up for more than a few hours.

About the links, the post has a link to Reddit at the top. For comments, I don't follow your scenario. You want to show someone their comment is invisible by providing a Reddit link? But that won't work... It's late and I'm tired so I may be missing something.

Thanks, just found that every single one of my comments in 2 different subs has been marked as removed, which explains why I never get responses on them.

Do you know how to fix this?

You can ask mods why they were removed, or use the Reveddit extension to be alerted the next time one of your comments is removed.

Useful tool. How are the API changes affecting you?

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.

that's a massive censorship
but why?

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.

I always make sure that when I remove a comment or post that I leave a comment listing the rule that the comment or post was breaking. I used to post as myself, but I got doxxed one time too many, and now I leave the comment as the subreddit.

I learned the hard way that people will start digging when they get upset, and censorship of any kind can be very upsetting. I even answer ban appeals as the subreddit now to help avoid some of the drama.

I don't get paid to moderate on Reddit, I am only happy to help keep the subs I am a part of just a little bit cleaner than before.

Unlike some of my fellow moderators, I only ban after multiple warnings, or when the user is abusive (racism, sexism, etc), and each time I go out of my way to explain why they got banned. I also want the subreddits I work for to succeed, so if the user makes a point to ask for the ban to be reversed, I do so as long as they weren't abusive. An instance might be where I've warned someone twice about a specific rule meant to keep things on topic, then ban them the third time, they then appeal the ban to tell me they have finally read the rules, I remove the ban and thank them.

I believe in treating everyone as an adult, and I don't require apologies or boot licking. Just let me know you've read the rules, and I'll get you back live as fast as I can. But I do this anonymously as well because I don't need the drama if you decide to just get mad instead, and then I start getting texts or emails to my work address, etc. It's not worth it to me, considering the lack of compensation.

I learned the hard way that people will start digging when they get upset, and censorship of any kind can be very upsetting.

Mods should be trained to expect this response and not overreact to it.

Clearly someone is going to be upset when their attempt to communicate with others is disrupted by a third party, anonymous or not. That doesn't mean you're right and it doesn't mean they're right. But we should not pretend there was no problem at all. Secretive removals are not the solution.

I'm absolutely disappointed in you. I took the time to explain not only why I use secretive removals but also to show examples, and all you could do was respond, "Not the solution." And as far as training goes, I was never trained. I don't know of any moderators that received training at all. For that matter, reddit doesn't train users in how to operate the site either. It's intuitive.

Subreddits are more than just communities. They are created by and molded by the very moderators that you (unfairly, it turns out) are vilifing. They are passion projects that we pour dozens of hours into each week without the slightest form of compensation. Every now and then I might stumble across someone who says, "it's okay, the mods here are fast and they will deal with this" and that is literally the only form of payment I get.

I constantly seek feedback from the people who provide the content and daily visits to my subreddits, always watching for when our culture starts to shift and a new rule needs to be voted upon, or an old one removed. I'm not some high-castled beauricrat that enjoys secretive power. I bet if you were to ask the hundreds of users I interact with every day who I was, the last thing they would pick would be a moderator of their favorite subreddit. I'm no diva or rock star. When I'm doing my job correctly, you won't even know I was there.

You, on the other hand, seem to know everything a out everyone and can't be bothered to explain why you are right and I am wrong. I'm moving on now, I'm sorry I took the time to answer you.

I took the time to explain not only why I use secretive removals but also to show examples

Where did you say you use secretive removals? I saw you changed to "leave the comment as the subreddit." That makes you more anonymous but it is not a secret removal to leave a comment explaining the removal.

Subreddits are more than just communities. They are created by and molded by the very moderators that you (unfairly, it turns out) are vilifing.

I'm not trying to villify anyone. It is not an attack to suggest that a group would benefit from training.

Every now and then I might stumble across someone who says, "it's okay, the mods here are fast and they will deal with this" and that is literally the only form of payment I get.

Indeed. The invisibility of your work likely decreases the thanks you would otherwise get with increased transparency.

I'm not some high-castled beauricrat that enjoys secretive power. I bet if you were to ask the hundreds of users I interact with every day who I was, the last thing they would pick would be a moderator of their favorite subreddit.

The users in your group do not know you are a moderator? Your username is in the sidebar...

I'm no diva or rock star. When I'm doing my job correctly, you won't even know I was there.

Wouldn't it be better if they could see that work and appreciate it?

You, on the other hand, seem to know everything a out everyone and can't be bothered to explain why you are right and I am wrong.

I've responded to a lot of comments here giving my opinion with linked sources. I don't see any major claim that I've ignored. I don't need to "explain why I am right and you are wrong." That's not how conversations work. You get to walk away believing what you think is true. It is not anyone's job to dictate that to you.

From a subreddit mod perspective its a bit two-fold.

• There aren't great tools to one click remove a comment and leave a removal reason.

• The sheer amount of content that gets removed for just breaking rules like "Don't insult eachother" and whatnot is just not practical to leave a response on every one. Abusive comments are the bluk (95%) of our comment removals.

Account shadowbans are used almost exclusively when someone obviously ban evades and becomes toxic. They will make a new account if we tell them they are banned, just for the sake of abusing people. If they're yelling into the void we don't have to worry about our users getting targetted.

There aren't great tools to one click remove a comment and leave a removal reason.

Users should see the red background on their own removed comments. That is the view that moderators get, and that is what users deserve.

Removal reasons can come later. The system should begin by telling the truth.

Account shadowbans are used almost exclusively when someone obviously ban evades and becomes toxic. They will make a new account if we tell them they are banned, just for the sake of abusing people. If they're yelling into the void we don't have to worry about our users getting targetted.

Lending support to shadow moderation like this gives "trolls" the very tool they need to keep users in the dark in their own groups. They will secretly remove what you perceive to be true and gain a massive following before you realize what happened. You may successfully keep them out of your own forums with shadow moderation, but all you're doing is leaving your userbase unprepared for "trollish" views that actually exist in the real world. In other words, you can't protect people from everything. Users should be part of the solution, and any mod tools should be value-driven. Others' bad behavior online doesn't excuse more bad behavior from communications systems.

That seems to show that they know it's wrong, but choose to do it anyway. That's abuse of power at the least.

To be fair, humans knowingly do a lot of things wrong. This one is just more visible, and fixable in my opinion.

Top 10 subreddits for removing comments? Looks like /r/unitedkingdom and /r/worldnews does it a lot.

I never tabulated that stat. I would guess #1 is R/science.

R/news removes 25-30% of comments up front, apparently from accounts that do not have a verified email. Some people like this guy don't discover it until they happen across Reveddit. I never understood why R/news does that or why they don't bother to notify users. It seems biased against older Reddit users since newer users are now more likely to supply an email address with the way the signup works.

Huge fan of your tool, used it yesterday even. No for the question, have you ever been "advised" from any Reddit Mod or something, to delete or revise some aspects of Reveddit?

Thanks! The answer is not really. Some wanted it to show user-deleted content, and I never did that. I thought it would be hypocritical given that I sometimes delete my own content. That said, people should be aware that anything they write may be recorded somewhere. And even without a record, you yourself will still know.

For the most part, mods appreciate the tool. Many will even link it to be transparent when users attempt to tell a different story about some past mod actions.

A multi-parter, if I may:

1. Is your service subject to reddit's API changes?

2. What tools/frameworks did you use to write reveddit?

No problem!

Is your service subject to reddit's API changes?

Yes and no. It does use the API, but Reddit's "free tier" allowance is enough that you can monitor your own removed content either without a key (10 requests per minute), or with your own key (100 requests per minute). Reveddit only needs to make two requests to review the status of your most recent 100 posts/comments, one to know what they were (from your user page), and one to get their status (as it appears on the rest of Reddit).

And if there were no API, you could do it by parsing HTML with a browser extension or mobile app. Generally speaking, this technique will always be possible for any public site.

What tools/frameworks did you use to write reveddit?

I haven't thought about this so I'll probably miss something, but it is mostly Javascript via ReactJS. I adopted that framework from a previous similar project.

Basically, any time I wanted to do something, I tried to use whatever I could learn quickly to achieve results. Reveddit's github repo also contains some Python and browser extensions. It's been quite a learning process. Going into this, I had a data science background and thought little of Javascript. That was wrong! There is a lot to learn.

I sometimes use it to browse a thread with a lot of removed comments by other users. Do API changes affect that, or is that also within limits?

I think if you use your own key (set via the gear icon in the top left) then you should be fine. Threads are somewhat crippled without access to Pushshift, which is now only available to mods due to Reddit's API changes, but you can still restore some comments.

Thanks for site! I use it regularly, in fact my favorite recent removed comment is the one where I said to check Reveddit because mods remove mundane comments and act like they're bad because they want to push a narrative.

One issue I have is Reveddit not picking up lots of removed comments when you're on the actual web page, is there any work to improve it? It used to be bulletproof but recently it's been missing stuff.

You're welcome!

One issue I have is Reveddit not picking up lots of removed comments when you're on the actual web page, is there any work to improve it? It used to be bulletproof but recently it's been missing stuff.

That's because Reddit's new policy changes demanded that the archive service used by Reveddit, called Pushshift, stop making its data set available to the public.

Now that /r/PushShift API is non-public, are you planning to support /u/PullPush-io as a replacement?

That looks half baked to me.

Here is my question for you: What made you want to invent it?

Now on to my main comment...

I LOVE reveddit! It is bizarre the things that have gotten my posts rem0ved since I have used it. The word filters that are used. Just recently I had a big post rem0ved because I had said the word that starts with a T and had ARD in the middle and a Y in the end because it spelled the 0ffensive word for a mentally handicapped person. I was using the word for being late to class. And so many subs you cant curse in that it is impossible to remember which subs do that and which dont!

I love the real time browser extension for Chrome.

Again, thank you so much for inventing it.

I described my motivation on video here and in this post,

In 2018 I discovered that all removed comments on Reddit are effectively shadow removals. I had been a regular commenter for years and was shocked to discover the deception. I figured there was not much point in trying to create or promote any other software while such authoritarian measures were in place, so I launched a website called Reveddit to show users their secretly removed content.

Thanks for your support!

* I forgot to mention, in 2018, post removals were also kept secret from authors. Reddit didn't make those transparent until 2019, and there are still exceptions to that.

I had completely forgotten about some of the covid stuff, thanks for bringing awareness to this, cool tool. I hope you're monetizing this?

I haven't yet, but I appreciate the support. I've certainly learned a lot along the way, and trying to tell the truth is valuable in itself. I highly recommend it!

Why do you make it impossible to navigate back to reddit?

I like your site ok, but I don't want to be trapped there and if I'm using it to investigate, I'd like to go back to the source (reddit).

Because your site makes it nearly impossible AFAIK, I'm never going to use it again. If it worked with Reddit, I would use it periodically and return to it.

Does pressing back not work?

Are you collecting stats of how many comments are removed per user on average? I'm ok with my 2%, automod seems to be the main reason. Would be nice to know when, because most are mistakes made that could be prevented on the next post.

Nothing of value was lost with my deleted comments.

I am not, but I don't think it should exceed 0%. There are certainly some people who think otherwise. One suggested to me that Reddit was designed to create echo chambers. It blew my mind that someone thought that.

Reveddit was eye opening for me. I appear to be getting shadowbanned in a bunch of subreddits and assuming it is because I was vocally against the protests. Anything I can do to resolve?

Removed comments on your user page have a "message mods" button. Use it. Don't assume that speaking up does nothing, even if you don't get a response. Write politely once, not repeatedly. It does make a difference when mods see that users care. Some will make the case that users don't care, which is of course not true. If users didn't care about removals, there would be no reason to hide it from them.

How do you feel about subs banning people for commenting in other subs and then if you ask what you did wrong they report you to the admins for harassment?

I don't like it! It feels like ad hominem on a mass scale.

Some people have convinced themselves that ad hominem works. I don't think it does. I think what's going on is the censorship that people don't know about enables a whole bunch of other bad behavior.

The fact we aren't shown the data at Reddit most certainly not mean that it wouldn't been collected, used, sold and stored by Reddit.

I see that you use google analytics, but Are you knowingly collecting any data that reddit wouldn't collect? If so, why?

I don't collect anything and mostly use Reddit itself to search for content these days, now that Pushshift is no longer public.

Officially speaking, Reveddit's privacy policy is linked here. That mostly identifies the hosts used to run it.

I apologize if someone else asked this and I missed it but my question is:

I can still do a search under a persons username but not under a sub. Probably because of Reddit changes. Will the sub search ever work again?

Will the sub search ever work again?

My guess is it will, but it will take some time to get there.

One possible path is, ChatGPT etc will be shown to be worth less than their currently perceived value, and trustworthy systems that allow real people to communicate with each other will be shown to be more valuable than is currently attributed to them.

Is there a way to show a count/graph of the subs we've had removed comments from? I'm leaning towards unjoining/muting subs that seem to randomly remove comments because, hey, why bother with them?

Under filters, the Subreddit dropdown shows the counts. Sorry that isn't so pretty on mobile. That is a UI thing I meant to implement improve.

They do it for free?

Volunteering in itself is not harmful. But volunteering to secretly remove "disinformation" or spam is not doing your civic duty. It is the equivalent of joining a red army. As we know from history, society can easily get swept up in this kind of fervor, and it draws in would-be members of both the left and the right. And unsurprisingly, neither group wants to take responsibility!

We do a lot of dumb things. We smoke, self harm, hurt others, etc. The dumbest thing we do is not speaking the truth. The issue here is how prevalent and harmful it is to secretly disrupt other people's communications.

Increasingly today, words are being seen as violent, and I suspect that has to do with the widescale use of shadow moderation across the internet. We're overprotecting on both the left and the right on every single issue. Words are not violent with rare exception. To get back to that we should re-examine the values underpinning the things we build.

Curious if you have large scale moderation experience?

In general it seems like you have a pretty naive view on the topic

When I’m removing a chain of 20 comments that are just users flaming each other, no, I’m not going to reply to each one saying they broke a rule

They know they broke a rule

It’s volunteer work, and if uses want to know what rule they broke… they can read the rules

Are you a moderator? Your profile does not list any subreddits.

if uses want to know what rule they broke… they can read the rules

The whole point is users do not know they broke a rule. Reddit shows them a false status of their removed content. That is not moderators' fault, and I do not ask moderators to leave removal reasons. The current system is a lie that dissuades honest users from moderating.

I reject the idea that you cannot talk about something unless you experience it. I can say gambling is harmful without being a gambler, and the same goes for hard drugs. Lionel Shriver discusses this in the context of being a writer accused of cultural appropriation. If you take that to its mathematical limit, you're left writing about yourself, and this should not be encouraged.

I've spent years looking at what gets removed from Reddit, and how. To argue that I can't talk about moderation is like me arguing you can't say users "know they broke a rule."

This is a conversation about what's right. Platforms and many moderators have avoided having this conversation in public view. The argument "you can't talk about this" is better discarded.

If you want to say I don't know what I'm talking about, that's fine. Show me. Where is shadow moderation needed, specifically? I bet someone can show you another way to deal with the issue that gives better results for society than mass censorship via a new red army.

What are your thoughts on the decentralised Reddit alternatives like Lemmy, in respect to arbitrary moderation and censorship?

I think we need systems we can trust, and decentralization does not obviate that need. You still need to trust the node's software, etc.

I suspect the current privately held forums will still be a thing, though maybe not so monopolistic. The time we spent building up today's platforms based on secretive moderation will be a lesson for future systems and users alike.

So there are people (and bots) with definite and unambiguous hate speech out there. Do you think they should be notified so that they can post that hate speech in a more ambiguous or unmoderatable way?

Put simply, do you think that we should be training the actual bad actors on how to circumvent the rules via sophistry or euphemism?

We should be teaching people the rules, not pretending nothing happened.

You say they are "unmoderatable." Okay. How about involving the community?

I regularly see moderators complain to admins in R/ModSupport that relentless trolls or spammers are able to get around existing moderation tools. That's with secret removals already in place. So, secret removals do not stop determined trolls. And, moderators say users do not understand the work they do.

I also see some like Greg Lukianoff of FIRE argue that society's overprotection of youth makes them unprepared for future harms. I see the same parallels online with the use of shadow moderation. As Johnny said in the podcast, shadow moderation hides consequences.

On the other hand, where I've seen transparency via Reveddit in play, users are more compliant and mods less abusive. I'll give two examples,

• EscapeFromTarkov: [problem] | [resolution]
• sandiego: [problem] | [resolution]

Further, there is a significant amount of overreach that happens as a result of not making moderator actions transparent. Just look at the reactions of regular users, not trolls, when they discover Reveddit. The phrase "no idea" comes up a lot. They had no idea this was occurring.

I do sometimes manage to resubmit and get a comment through, but the larger point is that if I didn't have the reveddit plugin I'd never even know they'd been deleted. I've no doubt there are many thousands of users who have no idea that a significant chunk of comments they post get immediately and silently deleted by bots (not just on this sub of course, the entire site's rife with it).

 

Wow, thanks for this! Had no idea I had so many deleted comments... Why can't they just notify about it, so you could fix the comment? Quite infuriating to see that I have like 5-paragraph comments with researched quotes that got deleted, because I dared to link to my sources. Can't see any other explanation.

 

It’s the “without notice” part that gets me. If you want to have an email verified community, that’s fine, but you shouldn’t just quietly hide comments from non-verified people. Let them know their comments are hidden.