About that r/LSAT Shadow Ban

 

Update (Mar 25, 2024): Cofounders Ben Olson and Nathan Fox discuss the continued censorship and lack of response from the moderator of r/LSAT, Graeme Blake.

While providing flimsy evidence and baseless reasons to continue LSAT Demon’s limitations, the moderator neglected to address the shadow ban. LSAT Demon students have also had popular threads mentioning the shadow ban locked. Users, including the one below, have been banned from r/LSAT and r/lawschooladmissions, which conveniently share the same moderator.

LSAT Demon team members, including Ben, Chris, Reggie, and Abigail, have been permanently banned from the subreddit without clear cause. After requesting explanation, no one has received a response.

 

Update (Mar 19, 2024): Cofounder Ben Olson has addressed some of the discussions happening on Reddit. For a deeper understanding of our perspective, check out LSAT Demon’s Stance.

Many of us at LSAT Demon started just like you—on r/LSAT. 

Unfortunately, our students haven’t been able to fully contribute to this community for almost a year. Their posts and comments about the Demon are secretly banned.

If you search for “Demon,” you won’t find any image posts for the last year. This void started shortly after a moderator posted About those Demon Bots - New Policy.

We’ve never used bots. And the two staff members mentioned didn’t mean any harm. Since then, we’ve told every team member to make it clear that they work for LSAT Demon if they decide to post anything.

Demon cofounder Ben Olson responded. After that, we let it go. Let Reddit be Reddit.

But about a year ago, we sensed that something was wrong after several of our students showed us posts and comments that were later removed or shadow-banned.

What Is Shadow-Banning?

A shadow-banned post appears normal to the poster but invisible to other users. 

Below are some examples of posts that Reddit users have shared with us. Comments mentioning LSAT Demon are visible from the poster’s perspective (left) but hidden from everyone else (right).

Here are several more examples:

1. This post is now removed with several shadow-banned comments.

2. This post is removed with shadow-banned comments.

3. This post is removed.

4. This post is removed with shadow-banned comments.

5. This post about 7Sage has a single shadow-banned comment when the poster mentioned LSAT Demon.

6. This post is not removed but has shadow-banned comments.

7. This post is not removed but has shadow-banned comments from users who were not the poster.

Attempted Outreach and Next Steps

Writing this blog was not our first choice.

We contacted r/LSAT moderators 10 months ago through Reddit to figure things out. We later sent emails to members of the moderator team seeking clarification. No response. 

We believe that r/LSAT should be an open community where students are free to share their experiences—good or bad—free from secret censorship. Bots and disingenuous posts suck! That’s why we’ve never used them. We hope that the secret ban will end, allowing r/LSAT users to discuss our tools openly.