Reddit Bans 11-Year Account for GPL Game Post, Testing the EU's DSA
Longtime Slashdot reader DF5JT writes: On July 26, I posted a single announcement in r/backgammon: GNU Backgammon for Android, GPLv3, the first standalone backgammon engine on F-Droid. Reddit's spam filter removed the post and permanently banned my 11-year, 30,000-karma account -- the result is publicly visible at reddit.com/user/OE1FEU. To this day, Reddit has given no reason whatsoever,…
On July 26, Reddit user DF5JT, a longtime Slashdot reader with an 11-year, 30,000-karma account, posted a single announcement in r/backgammon about GNU Backgammon for Android, which is released under the GPLv3 license. Unfortunately, Reddit's spam filter removed the post and permanently banned DF5JT's account, resulting in a publicly visible ban at reddit.com/user/OE1FEU.
Despite the ban, Reddit has offered no explanation for the decision, which is in violation of Article 17 of the EU's Digital Services Act, that requires a statement of reasons. The only appeal channel for users is a 250-character web form that has never been answered, and Reddit's own help text admits that users may not have received a message to their inbox.
After spending a day escalating through every mechanism available under EU law, including certified out-of-court dispute settlement, complaints with Austrian and Dutch Digital Services Coordinators, the data protection authority, noyb, and Austria's consumer association, DF5JT found that the European Commission's DSA Transparency Database contains 14,067 statements of reasons for that week, none of which mentioned DF5JT's ban.
Additionally, the Commission's own feedback form limits reports to 500 characters and crashes with a 500 Server Error. The question now arises: is the DSA enforceable for ordinary users, or is it merely a formality?
Written by urgent.news from Slashdot's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
