And if you think this is sensationalist, ask yourself a very simple obvious question:

Why was this deleted??

Reddit is owned by jews.

Maybe hes deleting his own posts to increase attention/interest? Why the hell would mods be single handedly deleting post after post and not just ban his account/IP?

If that is true, then he's just taken the final move of deleting his own account.

Pretty sure he got shadowbenned... again

I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren't realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn't about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It's about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. A few points: 1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people. Lets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you're now considered a dangerous person. With this tech in place, the government doesn't have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you're reporting on them to protect your dad. 2) Let's say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They're shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won't be responsible for anyone dying. That's going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they're next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke. 3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you've never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can't say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn't feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it's infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the records that he treated you. Even you calling his office prompts a visit from the local police. You decide to go home and see your parents. Maybe they can help. This leg is getting really bad. You get to their house. They aren't home. You can't reach them no matter how hard you try. A neighbor pulls you aside, and he quickly tells you they were arrested three weeks ago and haven't been seen since. You vaguely remember mentioning to them on the phone you were going to that protest. Even your little brother isn't there. 4) Is this even really happening? You look at the news. Sports scores. Celebrity news. It's like nothing is wrong. What the hell is going on? A stranger smirks at you reading the paper. You lose it. You shout at him "fuck you dude what are you laughing at can't you see I've got a fucking wound on my leg?" "Sorry," he says. "I just didn't know anyone read the news anymore." There haven't been any real journalists for months. They're all in jail. Everyone walking around is scared. They can't talk to anyone else because they don't know who is reporting for the government. Hell, at one time YOU were reporting for the government. Maybe they just want their kid to get through school. Maybe they want to keep their job. Maybe they're sick and want to be able to visit the doctor. It's always a simple reason. Good people always do bad things for simple reasons. You want to protest. You want your family back. You need help for your leg. This is way beyond anything you ever wanted. It started because you just wanted to see fair treatment in farms. Now you're basically considered a terrorist, and everyone around you might be reporting on you. You definitely can't use a phone or email. You can't get a job. You can't even trust people face to face anymore. On every corner, there are people with guns. They are as scared as you are. They just don't want to lose their jobs. They don't want to be labeled as traitors. This all happened in the country where I live. You want to know why revolutions happen? Because little by little by little things get worse and worse. But this thing that is happening now is big. This is the key ingredient. This allows them to know everything they need to know to accomplish the above. The fact that they are doing it is proof that they are the sort of people who might use it in the way I described. In the country I live in, they also claimed it was for the safety of the people. Same in Soviet Russia. Same in East Germany. In fact, that is always the excuse that is used to surveil everyone. But it has never ONCE proven to be the reality. Maybe Obama won't do it. Maybe the next guy won't, or the one after him. Maybe this story isn't about you. Maybe it happens 10 or 20 years from now, when a big war is happening, or after another big attack. Maybe it's about your daughter or your son. We just don't know yet. But what we do know is that right now, in this moment we have a choice. Are we okay with this, or not? Do we want this power to exist, or not? You know for me, the reason I'm upset is that I grew up in school saying the pledge of allegiance. I was taught that the United States meant "liberty and justice for all." You get older, you learn that in this country we define that phrase based on the constitution. That's what tells us what liberty is and what justice is. Well, the government just violated that ideal. So if they aren't standing for liberty and justice anymore, what are they standing for? Safety? Ask yourself a question. In the story I told above, does anyone sound safe? I didn't make anything up. These things happened to people I know. We used to think it couldn't happen in America. But guess what? It's starting to happen. I actually get really upset when people say "I don't have anything to hide. Let them read everything." People saying that have no idea what they are bringing down on their own heads. They are naive, and we need to listen to people in other countries who are clearly telling us that this is a horrible horrible sign and it is time to stand up and say no.>

Friendly hint: See the button above the right Shift key on your keyboard? It's probably labelled "return" or "enter". Use it more often. It'd make whatever you're trying to say a hell of a lot easier to read.

Wow, really? Does anyone honestly disagree with what I said?

His json is gone which means he deleted his account. json stays there if it's a shadowban.

What's shadow band? Is it when you do a post but when you actually look for the post it's not there but you yourself can see the post in Links Posted?

Shadowbanned is what happens when basically Admins just write your IP and Account/s out of Reddit's code. They just whisk away all your account details and comments straight to the trash, meanwhile if you still happen to be logged in and active they enable a small code that prevents your comments/posts from reaching the main logging server, meaning the SB'd user can see their posts and comments clientside but haven't actually been posted due to not reaching the logging server because of the code/script. So basically, yesh

I've posted stuff before and it never shows up under new post section and in most cases I've seen post that I've posted vanish from its spot but can still be seen if I go to my links posted section. Why is that?

Mod removal possibly or just a glitch, if you were shadowB&'d I wouldn't be able to see anything of yours, effectively to Reddit you would cease to exist

Edit: Including comments

Right with one cavet, mods can help shadowbanned users by manually approving their comments and submissions from the spamfilter.

Found this thread, not a conspiracy type guy, but i felt like I should say that this is partly incorrect.

When you are shadowbanned, your account is simply marked as such, and all posts and comments are moved into the spam filter. Mods can see and re-instate posts if they so choose.

Your posts still exist, they just go where posts that have link shorteners and the likes go!

I remember this guy getting shadowbanned, but his account name is still visible. 161719's name just says [deleted], so I don't think he was shadowbanned...

Yes that's normally what happens with shadowbanning, 16 probably just deleted his account after posting

Here is the other one. Again, I bolded one phrase. Copy and paste as you please. First one to get shadowbanned gets a cookie. Reminder: I am banned form /r/bestof. You fine people are not.

I drove across Sinai from Cairo, which is crumbling. Sheep on the streets, buildings falling down, giant slums, poor education, nice food only for the very rich, streets covered in garbage, majority of the country is poor.

Went to Israel. Saw a city much like any city in Europe. Clean streets. Beautiful big store fronts. Sidewalks. Nice signs telling you where to go. Little stands and shops everywhere. Great food from around the world. Pastries, pizza. It was Europe, basically. I loved it. It was very clean! It was great.

You have to drive some distance out of Jerusalem to get to the wall. It is a nice drive past pastures and rolling hills with bushes and trees on them.

The wall is very tall. It is made of concrete. At the top there are guard posts with glass. There is barbed wire, even though the wall is far too high to get over. There are men with guns.

When you go through it, you are asked many questions about who you are and where you come from. If you have anything Arab about you this questioning is very long it can take several hours. You are brought through many layers of security, the inside of the wall is like a fort. You go back and force through a maze of metal bars, with many security cameras watching you. The bars look like the bars used to hold cattle at a rodeo.

You exit and on the other side is a tall wire fence covered with barbed wire. There is graffiti all over the wall. The buildings are crumbling. Noo nice food, streets made of dirt, everyone is poor.

There are men waiting to be taxi drivers, I went with one. He showed me an ID card with a picture of a baby on it. He told me a story.

"This is my son. You know how I got this card?"

"My son was born with a problem in his arm, and they said that if his arm wasn't operated on he would lose the arm. We don't have that kind of hospital here, so I have to go across into Jerusalem to see the doctor. So I go to the Fence."

"The man at the fence won't let me through. He says that I can't bring through any person without a card. He is referring to my son, who is a new born. He didn't have a card."

"So I say to him, where do I get the card? He says you must get the card in Jerusalem."

"I say let me through then I will get the card and leave my son with my wife. He says that won't work, a person must be present to have fingerprints and a photo and so on in order to get the card."

"I say how will my son get the card if he cannot travel through the fence to get the card?"

"He told me I was holding up the line, and my son never got the surgery, he lost his arm."

He passed me the card, he said it was fake, and he didn't have the courage to try it out, because you could be put in prison for such a thing. He had to choose between making his son grow up without an arm or without a father. The card was so poorly done. It was obviously fake.

We got up to the top of this hill, and he pointed out at these buildings coming over the hills, he said they were settlements, and they took over 3 more hills in the last few months. These were very nice buildings. Developments.

I went back to Israel that night, and I went to a waffle store. They had every kind of waffle. Chocolate waffle, ice cream waffle, Nutella. Anything. Any kind of fruit and so on. The taxis are really nice there they have meters, they don't clunk when they start. The monuments are lit up at night. There are little plaques at every monument that tell you the history in English and Hebrew and Russian and Italian.

When I took the bus back, I sat next to a young girl who had a phone with rhinestones glued to it in a heart shape, and a beanie baby on a key chain. She had a ponytail, she was texting and wearing an army uniform. She had a grenade launcher in the seat next to her. The bus stopped several times and the Palestinians were made to get off and be searched. Their bags were taken off the bus and dumped out, and the soldiers kicked through their belongings at the side of the road and we sat inside the bus and watched and they passed out snacks.

It was absolutely banal, but the whole thing chilled me, and I realized that this was the country at the center of American foreign policy, and this was the beacon of democracy, and I realized that these were the supposed "good guys," and I just thought that it wasn't fucking right, and that Christians should be embarrassed because Jesus wouldn't have stood for any of this.

Sorry I wrote a novel. It really changed me.

TL:DR; I think every American history teacher should be forced to walk around in Jerusalem, then go through the wall to Bethlehem and walk around in Palestine before teaching students that colonialism is something that "used to" happen.

Here is the other one that got deleted from /r/bestof. You probably haven;t seen it, but it is my favorite one. Now that you have everything of value, I'm out. Good luck you glorious bastards. The TRUTH as I see it is bolded below. To everyone who wrote to me or sent me messages: thank you. You have no idea how much that meant to me. You gave me courage.

http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1mku3z/i_see_belief_in_god_as_a_major_intellectual/ccaeioh

You don't have to respect it intellectually, but I'll try to explain it to you. I studied religion in college, and so I had to read everything from all the big religions and talk to a load of people about it, and I came to an understanding that helped me understand it more. It's a bit long winded, but it's a really dicey thing to try to type out. Bear with me.

All religions basically boil down to one idea. The idea sounds complex but it actually the most simple thing. It's called non-duality. Basically it means that the self and the other are the same thing.

You can talk about it in a lot of ways. But the way Taoism explains it is probably the best. It says, "The tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." This is the case because non-duality can't be defined through any conventional way of speaking. Why? Because non-duality means that the speaker and the listener is the same. It's essentially a paradox. It's the oldest paradox. In some ways, it's the only paradox, but I would say definitely the most important.

There was a guy in the 1950s called Joseph Campbell. He wrote a book called "Hero with a thousand faces." Basically he read every ancient myth, back to Gilgamesh and the Old testament, and North American Indian myths, and Buddhist stories, and so on. And basically he said that all stories follow a basic pattern. It's the ultimate archetype. It goes like this:

Man is living in some condition. He gets a call to go on an adventure. He leaves, and he encounters struggles. He learns. He faces the ultimate obstacle, and he dies. Then he realizes non-duality. Then he is reborn, and he returns to his people with the message.

Campbell argues that every story follows this basic narrative, even if it is updated and hidden from view. He became very influential, and George Lucas credits him with helping to influence the story of Star Wars.

The reason Campbell's insight is important is that all religions basically center around a narrative. For Christians it's Jesus. For Jews, it's Moses. For Muslims, it's Muhammad. For Buddhists it's Buddha. But in each case, the story is the same. Just the setting and the trimmings change.

Religious practice in major traditions also include ways to train the mind to find this sort of "realization" of non-duality. These are the mystic sects, usually. Sufis, monastic orders, zen monks, and so on. They all talk about the same thing: Dissolve the ego. Why? Because if you dissolve the ego, the "you" you realize that "you" are actually one with all of reality. "You", your "self" is a microcosm for everything that exists, all the universes, all the quantum particles, everything. It's all contained in the self. It IS the self.

The thing is, this isn't an idea I would call "intellectual," because again, it relies on this idea that non-duality isn't something that can be understood. It's just a deep, profoundly simple truth. No one that talks about it can really SAY it right, because using language to describe it, like I said, is by definition inaccurate. That's why if you look at zen practice, it involves getting smacked a lot, and non-sensical sayings. Sufi practices involves spinning in circles and chanting the same thing over and over. Monastic practice involves not talking. It just isn't something to be conquered with the rational mind. It's something that can barely be glimpsed, maybe for an instant, if you practice and practice. It's what's called "God."

Now in the Bhagavad Gita, there's a description of what the Hindus call different "yogas" or ways to reach an understanding of God. I forget their names, but in English they're "Mind yoga," "Body yoga," "Heart yoga," etc. They spent a lot of time on these, and tried to figure out the different "paths" to get to this idea of God.

Heart yoga involves loving God until you're overwhelmed. If you read Rumi, a Sufi poet, you'll understand it. It's also why Christians talk about loving Jesus, and Hindus love Krishna.

Body yoga involves repeated postures as part of a discipline, to overcome the ego and reach a deeper understanding. That's why Muslims pray five times a day and assume different postures.

Mind yoga is the toughest. It involves trying to understand so minutely, that you somehow come to grips with how amazing reality is, and realize your true place in it. Your true belonging. I'd say (and forgive me here) that's probably what most Atheists are doing.

See, at it's core, religion doesn't need God. It really doesn't Sure, lots of people make money off religion, because people have an innate call to feel and understand non-duality. That's why they say they want "something more" or they want "meaning." It's the same way people make money off love. We all accept that love is a real human urge and understanding, but we don't complain that some hucksters use our desire for it to sell magazines or clothes or music or deodorant.

I can completely understand why people don't like organized religion. Probably the same reason why they don't like "organized love." It's silly. But then, non of the major prophets actually really called for organized religion. They basically just went on the hero's journey, came back, and said "Oh my God people, you won't believe what I just figured out." It's everyone else that makes this whole apparatus around it for their own selfish purposes, or because they don't really understand it themselves, or because they think that other people are too dumb to understand it, but should still be tricked into getting closer to it through practice. So yes, accepting a religion wholesale without actually going on the life's journey yourself, in this day and age, is probably a cop-out. But not an intellectual one. It's a human one. It's also a cop-out though to get mad at religion, and therefore stop examining yourself, or cutting short your own journey. It's a cop-out to decide you've conquered life becasue you can intellectually disprove the childish derivation of an idea that can't really be understood. You don't have to call anything God. That's not important. But you do have to confront non-duality on some level. I don't know why. It's like you have to confront death, but even deeper than that.

So in short, I think you need to redefine your question. I'm not sure how. It's less about "God" being real or not real. Or "religion" being good or bad. Because I think if you went to certain religious people, they'd agree with you. They're trying to climb a mountain, and other people are handed a Polaroid of what it looks like at the top and claim to be mountaineers.

It's more about your understanding of your self, and what you really are. if you think that latching on to an idea of "God' that is borrowed from an old man in a funny outfit, I'd probably agree with you, but I'd also say be careful that you don't shut your mind to the possibility that some crazy religious people might actually be on to something that can make life somehow.....more human.

Tl;DR; God is like love. Just like the impulse to love is not fully summed up in a love song, the impulse to God is not summed up in religion. Religion is inspired by God like the song is inspired by love. Hating on love because you don't like the song is not right.

TL:DR; God is like love. Religion is a love song. A messy, sometimes violent, sometimes liberating love song.

TL;DR do psychedelic drugs.

time is infinite, death is an illusion, all consciousness in the universe is one, we just don't appreciate that fact often enough. the only thing that exists is the present moment. it's all good. :)

I've known this for a while now and every time I think about it or get reminded of it, I have this wonderful feeling come over me. Meditation is also a good way to realize the truth within yourself.

heh, eating a ton of mushrooms at once helped me understand non-duality.

psychedelic drugs are the higher being's tools for self-discovery.

Wait, was that post 161719 as well? And now because of this shit he's deleted his account?

That makes me really sad. I found that post to be wonderfully insightful, much like the rest of the posts.

[deleted]

The part that kills me about the Abrahamic religions is how people misunderstand the first and most important commandment. God is first. Why? So you cannot be. If you cannot give up your selfish needs, you will have a much harder time coming to grips with being part of something bigger. To me the big irony is that all those preaching hate are failing their prophets hard. They are agents that have taken the goals of the elites of state and try to superimpose those as the will of God. Taking the lord's name in vain is in there as a reminder of the first commandment.

The good news is if there is a heaven and hell, I know where all those that seek to divide instead of unite are going.

I don't know why you're deleting your shit, but I want to say I loved this post and thank you.

?.. It is the differentiator that makes the distinction by observation. The system begins to repesent its own existence by incorporating the differences it knows and by making the case it time, space and self-awareness. The difference de-fine-s itself, the system and everything else, duh. See how the first cells emerge and how law, science or anything that makes a difference works.

/luhmann or so, freely adapted. if you want, you attribute it to ERIS, hail Eris, or high five!

First, you'll want to conceal your identity! Graffiti is easy when no one knows its you! Make a new username. That's it. You're all set! Now to do the graffiti. To copy, select the text and hit "ctrl-c." To paste, go to /r/bestof, select a comment thread, and hit "ctrl-v." Online graffiti is fun, easy, and totally legal. The only ones who will be inconvenienced are the very mods who deleted the posts!

You might want to add a line such as "Remember this? It was deleted!" Just to jog the memories of everyone there. Simple!

It's almost as if it is difficult to censor things on the internet!

Note: If they have automoderator you might need to change things up a bit. Replace a few characters here and there. Be creative! Put it in code! Put in binary. Bitches love binary.

Or just write your own message. This fine fellow is about to be banned from bestof. What will you say when your grandchildren ask you if YOU were banned from bestof?

Why be a victim when you can be an artist?

As a mod, this type of thing annoys me to no end. It's one thing if they gave a salient reason for deleting the post but it was just deleted and there wasn't a single peep from the mods as to why. There should be a moderator Code of Ethics to be transparent as to what and who gets banned and an explanation as to why.

I messaged the /r/bestof mods to let them know I had unsubscribed and would spread the word about this. I got this reply: http://i.imgur.com/Fsoqzel.png

The sad thing is that I don't think they realize what they're doing is wrong. They think they know better than their own subs as to what their subs should see/read. Censorship is an ugly thing.

Great job stickying this post mods, you guys are awesome.

Adieu, /u/161719

Damn Why did he delete his account

He was probably shadowbanned. Same thing happened to me when I posted too many things that the admins didn't want people to know about.

I'm out. Good luck you glorious bastards.

From this thread. He deleted.

Banned?

Would have to be a special kind of ban reserved for people like PIMA who really piss of the admins.

I bet PIMA deleted the account after the shadow-ban. I've seen it happen before.

I haven't seen or heard of any other kind of ban since the shadow-ban debuted. The logic being that a shadow-ban is effective for a little bit longer than a hard-ban where the user knows instantly that they should just create a new account.

[deleted]

I know about shadowbanning. It happened to me a few years ago. I was asking about a total ban where the admins delete one's account and/or put a ban on one's IP address.

/u/161719 was a great user and it is very sad to see him gone. Come back soon friend.

*Also, by repost his comment he does not mean all over reddit. He is clearly talking about the internet in general. In case anyone was confused.

Please follow the advice in the comments and repost your story. If they delete it, post it again. I'll copy and paste and post it myself. Blanket reddit with this story, do not let the corrupt win.

Welp he's gone now.

Who is? Was his ip banned or just his username?

/u/161719 shows up as [deleted] now.

Honestly getting banned from Reddit should be a badge of honor at this point.

[deleted]

Just for the record, I saw this when it was originally posted, before it hit bestof and whatnot, like in the original thread. Not that it matters, just saying.

Annnnnddddd down votes. Also downvoted for asking what the thread was originally. This shit is just becoming ridiculous. Seriously, what the fuck can we do about this?

[deleted]

Do you recall what thread it was originally in? I thought it was an askreddit or something similar?

Who is deleting these posts? At whose behest are they being deleted?

time for some of that graffiti... adieu, I shall create a throwaway.

I've lifted this and posted it to my blog - I hope you don't mind.

I have attributed it it reddit and will include any username you prefer if you contact me.

Dont stop or be censored, dont be married to your karma, make another account and speak your mind in any subreddit you want regardless of any bogus previous ban.

Posting for read latee

This exactly how the NSA will play it

[deleted] [deleted]

I remember reading the original post.

I'm all against this censorship, but I vaguely remember seeing many posts about how certain accounts basically repost stuff and have tons of karma points, which isn't the important part, but also have many /r/bestof posts as well, which is what I'm interested in.

How is it that this guy has so many bestof posts on a site that has thousands of posts daily?

Friendly hint: See the button above the right Shift key on your keyboard? It's probably labelled "return" or "enter". Use it more often. It'd make whatever you're trying to say a hell of a lot easier to read.

I bet PIMA deleted the account after the shadow-ban. I've seen it happen before.

I haven't seen or heard of any other kind of ban since the shadow-ban debuted. The logic being that a shadow-ban is effective for a little bit longer than a hard-ban where the user knows instantly that they should just create a new account.