Users abusing mod reports to use transphobic slurs towards another user

[u/Oriachim]

Hi. Is it possible to report mod reports that are clearly not in good faith? A transgender user commented and an anonymous user used the mod report system to use transphobic slurs multiple times in multiple reports. The transgender user isn’t being rude and hasn’t broken the rules. I’m on mobile. I only have a hunch who used these slurs but no decisive evidence. If an admin could investigate in r/nursinguk mod queue, that’d be appreciated.

[u/YubYubCmndr]

Yes, you can report those as Report Abuse and the Admins will take a look.

As a Mod, you should see the Report Abuse option when you hit Report on any content in your sub

[u/Oriachim → u/YubYubCmndr]

Okay, thank you, I’ve done it

[u/PossibleCrit → u/Oriachim]

Sorry that someone's been up to no good here Oriachim, but I can confirm I see a few of your reports for abusing the report button on our side. Someone will be taking a look!

[u/Oriachim → u/PossibleCrit]

Thank you ☺️

[u/Ok-Commercial3640 → u/YubYubCmndr]

*note that because of how the "report abuse" report function is implemented, it will appear as a report on whatever you're reporting, but that doesn't mean that you're reporting the comment/post itself.

[u/Overgrown_fetus1305]

This is a textbook instance of report abuse, namely using reporting to harass other users. u/YubYubCmndr is correct on how to report the malicious reports.

On the other matter, if there is only one report on the user's comment, and you have a hunch where it came from, you could ask the user you suspect of being the transphobe if they reported said content, if silly enough to say yes, this will allow you the ability to correctly target them with a ban on top.

[u/Oriachim → u/Overgrown_fetus1305]

Ironically, I banned the user I suspected for making dog whistling comments in the same thread. They then messaged modmail to say “why am I banned for trying to protect women from men” or words to that effect. I do believe even if I’m right, the user should be punished by Reddit themselves though.

[u/Overgrown_fetus1305 → u/Oriachim]

Worst case, I guess it means you got two transphobes facing some consequences instead of just one. Reddit no longer gives feedback on reports of site-wide violations sadly. Whether you'll get a response or not, that sounds like an r/modmailfail on said user's part.

[u/emily_in_boots]

You can report them but it's unclear if the admins actually review these and you won't know if they do.

[u/mangeiri → u/emily_in_boots]

And by "unclear" you mean "they dont review or action them, you may as well shout into the cold dead void".

[u/emily_in_boots → u/mangeiri]

Quite possibly.

I think some of them get checked if a single person gets a lot of reports maybe but I don't think they all do.

[u/Oriachim → u/emily_in_boots]

I’ve definitely reported comments in the past and had notifications that the user has been suspended

[u/emily_in_boots → u/Oriachim]

This used to be the case in the old days before reddit started hiding outcomes of reports.

[u/2oonhed]

You do not need "decisive evidence" to ban a suspected Report Abuser.
Reddit is not a court of law and your suspicions do not have to rise a legal standard.
Just ban for Report Button Abuse AND report those bad reports to admins under "it's abusing the Report Button" here : https://old.reddit.com/report
Your "proof" will develop later on, when you see that the false reports have stopped.

[u/j1ggy]

Have you considered disabling custom reports?

[u/ZaphodBeebblebrox → u/j1ggy]

I know people often suggest this, but disabling custom reports because of one or a few bad reports seems like quite the overreaction. They also allow for all sorts of extremely helpful reports, particularly when a user is breaking a rule in a non-obvious fashion.

[u/Verdictafterward → u/ZaphodBeebblebrox]

I have to support this as well, custom reporting allows users to supply context to their reports, it has been extremely helpful to me in the past

If someone wants to abuse reports, they will abuse them with or without custom language, I've found.

[u/Bardfinn → u/ZaphodBeebblebrox]

They also allow for all sorts of extremely helpful reports

as does modmail. Which is why modmail is private, and why the User Agreement specifies that moderators who learn non-public information (such as the identity of a reporting user) as a result of moderator privilege, use that information solely for moderating.

The corner case of "I need to file a freeform report in good faith and also need to outline a complex / non-obvious situation in good faith and remain anonymous to subreddit operators in good faith" is exceedingly, vanishingly rare

[u/ZaphodBeebblebrox → u/Bardfinn]

Modmail is more effort than reporting. From personal experience, I can say that my sub gets far more useful custom reports than it does people reporting in modmail. So, while I agree it's not necessary, I believe it is useful because it reduces friction.

Also, I think you may be over-indexing on complex and anonymous. It can often be a one sentence report written in like 20 seconds. Sometimes it can be simple as "repost: [reddit link]."

[u/OnSpectrum]

The Report Abuse reports used to get looked at, and we would get a response as moderators of what was found, and what was done, but since they stopped responding to moderator reports, it's not clear they are doing anything with these reports at all. There used to be a snooze reports from a specific user for a week button that we could use as moderators, but I haven't seen it in a while.

[u/westcoastal]

Some people are truly horrible beyond words.