There doesn't seem to be anything here...said Digg 2.0.

http://i.imgur.com/DVkQUnr.png

OK the above image link is from a recent conspiracy post with the same problem that you've outlined here.

As you can see from the image it says that automoderator removed the post, this is half true. Automod did remove the post because it trigger 1 or more automod filters, but you would have never seen these post anyway because the sockpuppet accounts posting them have been shadow banned by reddit admins. If you look at the user pages of the users with removed comments you'll see that their pages don't exist and therefore they are shadow banned.

I hope this all makes sense, if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

No problem. We have seen a lot of young accounts using proxies to avoid sock puppet detection that are still actively posting even though they are shadow banned.

This leads me to believe that someone is running software that is supposed to flood the comments section with useless comments to drown out real discussion. This has all started recently within the past 3-4 days.

As a mod I can see comments from shadow banned accounts, regular users can not see shadow banned account activity.

Are you are saying the shadowbanned socks are still posting without being on the approved poster list?

Right. You guys will never see them because they are shadow banned.

As a mod I can see shadow banned account activity.

They obviously aren't aware that they have been shadow banned.

Ah, got it. Thanks.

I thought they were circumventing the shadowban and still making visible posts in the sub.

No they just haven't realized they are shadow banned.

A normal user who is shadow banned would probably notice fairly quickly.

These are most likely scripted chatterBOTS. Forum sliding or some other nefarious intent.

Automoderator is removing their comments on top of the shadow ban because automod is a mod, and can see the comments just like I can, and auto mod is a bot so it doesn't realize the futility of its actions.

What were the censored comments about? Anything in common? Specific keywords, specific topics, specific submissions, etc.?

I have been plagued by far more "Reddit is overwhelmed" pages than normal when loading Conspiracy and Worldnews comment pages ever since Sunday (Father's day in the states). Probably nothing, though.

[deleted]

That was the dumbest shit of all time. I left for the day as I figured it to be a wash.

However, and this is what I find interesting: if you try to access a submission while it's in the process of being deleted from a subreddit's "new" queue you will always see the error page. Hit reload, and you're taken to the post. But, it was still removed from the queue and from the search feature. I've had a few posts deleted in this way and I've caught this occurence more times than coincidence should allow. It appears that a submission becomes "locked" for review or during deletion updates in the DBs as part of the deletion process which does take a noticeable amount of time. It's not instantaneous.

I have noticed that to. I will click a post with 5 comments and there is none on the comment page. So I write comment and the same thing happens Comment number goes up and I still only see my comment. I just thought it was lag or on my end.

http://i.imgur.com/aKrJSMU.png

Check this one out. More bots than people...

The faded red ones are shadow banned. The solid red ones are just auto mod clipped.

So this is the work of... the mods?

/More confused than before

No, you might want to read the full comments of the other thread I linked to.

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1glv6a/this_subs_comments_are_being_actively_censored/calxphx

Start here.

Thanks.

could be a bug. happens sometimes

See the sidebar photo for further information...

There are a few scenarios where this can happen.

1) The author of the comment deleted it themselves.

2) A mod removed the comment

3) An admin removed the comment

4) automoderator removed the comment (based upon specific thresholds that have been programmed into the filter)

5) reddit is lagging and causing things to delay before showing up. (Usually if this is the case you can make a post and see your own post, until after you refresh then your post is missing as well.)

Same has happened to me. It's obviously being censored.

It's just a reddit bug. The system gets backed up and new comments stop appearing. It happens from time to time in popular subs. They'll show up within 5-20 minutes usually.