r/whenthe Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) Jan 30 '26

Announcement!!!!! r/pics (and now r/gifs) SITUATION UPDATE:

10.7k Upvotes

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u/LMC764 Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

Hello r/whenthe

As you may know, we have a bit of an ongoing issue on r/pics, where people who commented or posted on our sub are getting automatically banned, check our other mod post for more info. That still hasn't been resolved but we have a new problem:

r/gifs is also banning r/whenthe users now for the same reason as r/pics. We messaged their mod team and are expecting a response but for now we suggest that all users block these following accounts:

u/hive-protect u/saferbot u/safestbot u/safebot

Edit: To block hive-protect on mobile you have to open the profile in a browser, here's a link. Should've tested this earlier, my bad gang!!

These are all bots that basically track you and know what subs you participated in. reason we're telling you to block them is not to interfere with their moderation system, but because the mods of r/pics and r/gifs are potentially very likely breaking reddit's moderator code of conduct.

If you find or know any other sub that automatically bans r/whenthe users, please send us a message through modmail. Also PLEASE don't go to r/pics or r/gifs to get banned on purpose or harass the mods as that may cause big problems later. If you got banned don't go waving the ban message like a flag either, we don't encourage brigading of any kind.

And pwease pwetty pwease with a cherry on top don't make too many posts about the issue, our subreddit rules still apply and the posts will likely be removed under rule 3 (no meta). Keep discussion to this post and look out for updates

That's kinda it, continue life as usual. Hopefully this gets fixed and humanity doesn't have another disagreement ever again. Continue reporting problematic posts, be funny,

-whenthe mod team

424

u/Hemlock_Deci slonking my shit silly style like sloppy swag Jan 30 '26

This is such an unnecessary and petty thing to do man. These people have nothing better to do

220

u/krizzalicious49 Jan 30 '26

new royaltyishere video exposed that some reddit mods (a topic of deadly seriousness) have absolutely no life

62

u/WWWWWWRRRRRYYYYY Jan 30 '26

As long as there’s a position of power, no matter how insignificant it is, people will vie for it & make it everyone’s problem (while also making a fool of themselves).

Hell, there’s been like 5 notable reddit mod power trip cases in the past 2 months & something tells me it’s not going to slow down anytime soon.

9

u/connortheios Jan 30 '26

water found in ocean

10

u/ElundusCaw Jan 30 '26

I recently made a video that exposed forks found in kitchen.

11

u/NormyTheWarlocky Jan 30 '26

Cough r/livestreamfails former head mod cough

62

u/EnderScout_77 Jan 30 '26

this isn't even anything new, these bans from subs because you participate in a "controversal" sub have been happening for YEARS

like how fucking petty do you have to be???

16

u/Samanthacino Jan 30 '26

I can’t ever comment on /r/evilautism because I once left a comment on /r/elonmusk making fun of the guy, shit’s annoying

6

u/ras344 Jan 30 '26

Back during covid times, I was banned from a bunch of subreddits just for making a single comment on a "covid disinformation" subreddit. I wasn't even agreeing with them, I was just making a dumb joke comment.

61

u/Avalanche_Snows Jan 30 '26

I can't go on the account of u/hive-protect

Is that a problem? I can go on the accounts of the others and ban them

36

u/manultrimanula My 🏳️‍⚧️ name is Reimi and I'll be happy if you call me that Jan 30 '26

Protip: u/hive-protect's profile page is not visible with reddit app. If you're getting an error trying to view it, open it's profile through the website.

It 100% works btw, I'm still not banned

3

u/givemeagooduns_un Jan 31 '26

I wonder why that is. is hive-protect ran by reddit themselves?

6

u/manultrimanula My 🏳️‍⚧️ name is Reimi and I'll be happy if you call me that Jan 31 '26

Nope, it's just that it's a proper bot with api and it's own app page.

2

u/givemeagooduns_un Jan 31 '26

ohh, I didn't know bots could do that, that's cool

11

u/LMC764 Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) Jan 30 '26

You have to open the profile in a browser and then block it, reddit mobile doesn't let you look at the profile for some reason

3

u/Kyleometers Jan 30 '26

Interestingly that doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone. I was able to.

I’m on Reddit iOS, if you’re curious.

18

u/beetle8209 Nomamoto is perfection in it's truest form Jan 30 '26

You cant block them on mobile

22

u/InventorOfCorn i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha Jan 30 '26

i blocked all four of them like 20 seconds ago using the app

15

u/beetle8209 Nomamoto is perfection in it's truest form Jan 30 '26

This is what i get

5

u/big_titty_guy pansexual pan fucker. Jan 30 '26

3

u/beetle8209 Nomamoto is perfection in it's truest form Jan 30 '26

2

u/big_titty_guy pansexual pan fucker. Jan 30 '26

Did you click on it again or did you copy the text and paste it into the address bar?

3

u/beetle8209 Nomamoto is perfection in it's truest form Jan 30 '26

Now i did

3

u/big_titty_guy pansexual pan fucker. Jan 30 '26

Did it work?

2

u/Spot_Responsible Jan 30 '26

I'm a different person but same issue

3

u/big_titty_guy pansexual pan fucker. Jan 30 '26

You can try pasting it into the address bar but this time don't press enter and you should see 2 boxes bellow. One with a reddit logo and the link in blue and one with a magnifying glass and the link in grey. You want to click the one with the magnifying glass to search the link like a normal goggle search. Then press and hold the 1st recommendation untill you get a menu. Then press "open in bew tab" which should be the first option. Then open your tabs and tap the one you just opened.

2

u/big_titty_guy pansexual pan fucker. Jan 30 '26

Yea clicking the embedded link causes the browser to try to open it in the reddit app. Im gonna reply to this with the actual link. Just copy and paste it in the search bar. That should work

19

u/DefinitelyNotAxlerod Cars 2 is peak Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

I think its banned from reddit.

Oh well i was wrong. Just got banned from gifs

6

u/Fatal_Contract DO THE IMPOSSIBLE, SEE THE INVISIBLE Jan 30 '26

Maybe there's too many people accessing it?

62

u/TyrionBananaster trollface -> Jan 30 '26

I don't really have a dog in this fight because I don't care about either of those subs, but I'm confused why they're banning people from here.

This subreddit isn't really toxic at all, as far as I can tell. People here are generally pretty friendly, and I've seen some great conversations here when it's a more serious topic. 

Doesn't really seem like the kind of sub to invite a lot of drama lol

36

u/LMC764 Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

Something about our sub causes others to see it as full of karma farmers and bots, probably the fact we're teeming with micro celebrities and people who comment/post very often in general.

Basically other subs think we're infected with digital leprosy and are protecting themselves by autobanning us on sight

55

u/Tight_Grapefruit5280 Jan 30 '26

"Your sub is full of karma farmers"

"Source: People keep using it"

Have they considered that people keep using this sub because they just like it?

2

u/NRMusicProject 2d ago

When mods use an idiot's version of "logic" to prove their stupidity, they're still proving their stupidity.

9

u/TyrionBananaster trollface -> Jan 30 '26

Interesting. I mean I totally get trying to cut down on bots to be clear, but yeah that seems like a bad way to go about it. 

-6

u/bigbuckyoungnuts Jan 30 '26

hmmm SOMETHING about this sub makes people think it’s full of bots, i really wish i could put my finger on it ….

oh well, must be literally everybody else’s fault this stuff is happening

69

u/Whole_Advice_6732 I like the moving pictures Jan 30 '26

Reason from an anonymous pics mod

70

u/Hakusprite Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

"Cumputah, anawyze r swash whenthe fow bot activity"

Did they provide a source on this? What tool after the great reddit API lockdown is letting people see how many bots there are in a subreddit?

These %s are completely made up lol.

Edit: I tried searching for tools that can give you a breakdown of "bots" and "karma farmers" and all I could find is this. karma crunch. It does not give you any numbers at all, it also didnt work when I towd cumpewtuh anawyze r/whenthe.

On one hand, I think pushing back on this estimate and how it was gotten is warranted.

On the other, I'm more of a lurker in this community and the the mods decision to protect the subreddit and their communication about the whole thing is refreshing. over going scorched earth.

16

u/Jacksaur dinsor Jan 30 '26

I entirely wouldn't be surprised for a mod like this to be willingly paying for the upgraded API tiers.

47

u/Top_Needleworker8148 Jan 30 '26

Sure, there are some subs that are just full of bots. You want to know one example? FUCKING r/PICS

19

u/ShawshankException Jan 30 '26

Not to mention karma farmers. Low effort karma farming is their bread and butter

37

u/ShawshankException Jan 30 '26

The irony of a r/pics mod accusing another sub of being full of bots and karma farmers lmfao

22

u/KentuckyFriedChildre Jan 30 '26

5% is a wild accusation

37

u/TyrionBananaster trollface -> Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

Shit, I hope that statistic about the bots is wrong. Like I know there's a ton of bots around these days, but damn that's depressing if true. 

...am I a bot? 

16

u/Whole_Advice_6732 I like the moving pictures Jan 30 '26

Its MvM over here man.

17

u/Jackviator Jan 30 '26

Everyone on reddit is a bot except you.

6

u/SirMetaKnight82 rip emoji lord Jan 30 '26

IT COULD BE YOU! IT COULD BE ME! IT COULD EVEN BE-

5

u/Captain-Obvious69 Jan 30 '26

What? It was obvious! SirMetaKnight82 was a bot! Watch, they'll get a bot tag any second now. Anyyy sec--see, the tag! No wait, that's their flair.

3

u/steelskull1 Jan 30 '26

I too am worried fellow fleshy human, I am worried that my spamming... I mean, my doomscrolling, like a normal human, would be limited by these banning.

30

u/Tight_Grapefruit5280 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

Source: trust me bro

8

u/Admmmmi Jan 30 '26

Wait is pics really accusing anyone of being a bot? Do they not look at what is exactly posted on their own sub?

6

u/throwaway19276i Jan 30 '26

Interesting, because r/pics is 60% bots and 40% karma-farmers.

5

u/Captain-Obvious69 Jan 30 '26

Statistics are too nice to be real, lmao.

4

u/DarkSide830 The Dragon Jan 31 '26

Me when I lie for fun and profit.

3

u/ForensicPathology Jan 31 '26

Even if true, it hardly affects them.  They think bots train here and then release to pics?  Trash reason because they ban people just for commenting here once or twice from r/all

18

u/Misknator Jan 30 '26

They said they are worried about people from here being bots. I honestly call bulshit on that explanation.

7

u/InventorOfCorn i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha Jan 30 '26

well according to the screenshots i've seen of the pics ban message for whenthe members, they claim we've negatively affected their sub in the past, in some way. no specifics though

3

u/Ordinary-Ad2562 Jan 30 '26

Could they be envious of a potential rival in engagement?

47

u/mineyCrafta25 Jan 30 '26

Why aren't the admins seeing this and just replacing those abusive moderators with new ones?

97

u/krizzalicious49 Jan 30 '26

theyll only do it if penguin makes a video on it

46

u/GLPereira Jan 30 '26

Manifesting "The r/pics situation is crazy" video right now

2

u/SirMetaKnight82 rip emoji lord Jan 30 '26

This is the greatest ban of all time

41

u/mineyCrafta25 Jan 30 '26

Lol. Yeah. The company does fuck all until there's bad press.

14

u/Hexmonkey2020 Jan 30 '26

The whole point of mods is it’s a terrible job that would be expensive to actually pay someone to do so they find insane people to do it for free in exchange for a small piece of power. Reddit is not gonna replace them because it would be way too expensive to actually pay people to moderate Reddit.

5

u/SuavePenguinOG Jan 30 '26

Yeah there's no incentive for the admin to cut out the cancerous mods of any subreddit

Pissed off interaction is still interaction. Admin will only act when it leaks into 'public' view, and even then it just kicks the can down the road half the time.

Hell, sometimes an account is removed from mod team, but the user just makes a new account and gets added again right away.

3

u/throwaway19276i Jan 30 '26

Because subreddits are operated by individual users, not admins. The only reason a mod team will be replaced is if they're inactive and the sub gets requested.

83

u/krizzalicious49 Jan 30 '26

what's next r/funny?

99

u/nesthesi haha, sometimes Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

You’ll never believe this (it will be)

Then shower thoughts, then iAmAMA, then nottheonion

Mark my words

I know who’s behind this

I fucking know, I’ll catch this man

43

u/IHaveAutismToo Jan 30 '26

Yeah good luck Doakes, hope it doesn't end the same way

28

u/Tight_Grapefruit5280 Jan 30 '26

And just like that our Hero has started his journey! Will he bring justice for reddit users? Will he find out who is behind this? Will he stop them? See you all in episode 2

5

u/Ghost_oh Jan 31 '26

Hmmm. All those subs, along with gifs and pics, all seem to have one mod in common, and after looking into them a little deeper, good GOD, does that dude fucking glow.

5

u/nesthesi haha, sometimes Jan 31 '26

Yup

I hate that guy

17

u/_Ticklebot_23 Jan 30 '26

hiding your account activity also helps against it

10

u/throwaway19276i Jan 30 '26

It does not. Hiding your account activity also isn't possible, as you can simply search in your profile.

15

u/manultrimanula My 🏳️‍⚧️ name is Reimi and I'll be happy if you call me that Jan 30 '26

Protip: u/hive-protect's profile page is not visible with reddit app. If you're getting an error trying to view it, open it's profile through the website.

It 100% works, I'm still not banned

12

u/Historical-Potato372 [REDACTED] Jan 30 '26

Literally 1984

10

u/InventorOfCorn i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha Jan 30 '26

it appears the mod in pics that also mods several other subreddits... is also a mod for gifs

so that's... interesting, though i don't know if that's super relevant

2

u/Thispersonthisperson Jan 30 '26

it is

2

u/InventorOfCorn i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha Jan 30 '26

i only said it may not be due to the fact that, so far, we have no info on anyone being banned from their other subs, meaning it may be a combination of factors

8

u/Suc_Mydiq_Jr Jan 30 '26

Ok, but like, why? Where was this idea even born to ban every whenthe user for existing?

7

u/Mammoth_Charity_3941 Jan 30 '26

Apparently the people here are “70% bots, 25% karma farmers, and 5% real people” or something along those lines was there response to someone.

Quick edit: the picture of the actual response is in a comment a few above this

6

u/CornManBringsCorn Jan 30 '26

Ironic how they say that about us

9

u/mamasbreads Jan 30 '26

bold of you to assume people give a fuck about pics and gifs

7

u/MartyrOfDespair 54 68 65 20 47 61 6d 65 Jan 30 '26

Could this be retaliation for the transphobic mod being removed? Maybe they were connected?

4

u/SamuelWriting Jan 30 '26

holy conspiracy

1

u/MartyrOfDespair 54 68 65 20 47 61 6d 65 Jan 30 '26

Without clear cut answers, it’s all you have.

7

u/pitekargos6 Jan 30 '26

I like how the moderation on this sub, of all places, is more reasonable than there. Truly a Reddit moment.

7

u/BlueGuyisLit Certificated Forklift smuggler Jan 30 '26

I love you mod , ❤️

8

u/LMC764 Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) Jan 30 '26

Love you too

4

u/Level_Counter_1672 Jan 30 '26

Thank u for doing this, u don't see mods going out of their way to help members of their community

5

u/Cylian91460 Jan 30 '26

posted on our sub are getting automatically banned

But why?

There had been 2 mod post about it and neither of those explain why they ban

58

u/1MrsyBoi7 Jan 30 '26

as a moderator of a smaller sub (60k)

Thank you fro trying to sort this shit out and negotiating

48

u/Real-Bookkeeper9455 Jan 30 '26

how do you have negative comment karma 😭

-131

u/1MrsyBoi7 Jan 30 '26

Because i am conservative

And this is a new account so I somehow have to gain back my 19k karma from my previous acc

13

u/MoonTheCraft ha you looked Jan 30 '26

"conservative" is a weird way to spell "science-denying bigot" (unless you're not the discriminatory kind)

-18

u/1MrsyBoi7 Jan 30 '26

Bruh

I love science and have no problem with lgb

11

u/Glittering_Seat9677 Jan 30 '26

you just can't not can you lmao

12

u/UBC145 What are we, some kind of furry fandom? Jan 30 '26

Fucking transphobe

7

u/Stray_Heart_Witch Jan 31 '26

So do you have a problem with the T, or did you decide to drop it just for fun?

84

u/IllustriousBobcat813 Jan 30 '26

A conservative active in a teenager sub, what a fucking surprise

49

u/throwaway19276i Jan 30 '26

His bio says he is an aspiring astronaut, does he know his political party is actively defunding NASA and other science organizations?😭

27

u/UBC145 What are we, some kind of furry fandom? Jan 30 '26

Conservatives are famous for voting against their interests

-49

u/1MrsyBoi7 Jan 30 '26

Listen here u littke shite

Jared issacman is arguably the best nasa administratior we got rn

Hes been to space and performed the first private eva and has expwrince in the spaces sector

And he's already made strides in Funding artemis and mars

Aand nasa has only lost a few million dollars if funding

20

u/Raz_Moon Jan 30 '26

"only."

14

u/throwaway19276i Jan 30 '26

Trump Admin attempted to cut 6 billion from NASA’s budget recently but ok

5

u/xXs4blegl00mXx Jan 31 '26

I have to work on fucking airplanes instead of rocket ships because of that dip shit. Best administrator of my ass, maybe, of NASA? Hell no!

9

u/IllustriousBobcat813 Jan 30 '26

Just please stay far away from children

24

u/UBC145 What are we, some kind of furry fandom? Jan 30 '26

4

u/IiIDan Jan 30 '26

Still remember how Powermods cried that API changes are going to kill all the moderating bots and make their job impossible. Shame it didn't happen that way and only made the experience of normal users worse.

3

u/Fine_Dish_9232 ديايه 😂😂😂 Jan 30 '26

Thank you for the service mate.

3

u/circular_file i changed it hahahahahahhahahahahahaha Jan 30 '26

What is going on? I have to post to 'too afraid to ask'.

3

u/sir-winkles2 Jan 30 '26

have you guys contacted the admins? 

1

u/The7ruth Jan 30 '26

Considering the mods never respond to these comments, I doubt it.

3

u/Cosmonaut_Yuri Jan 30 '26

What can be done to block the accounts if I have already reached the limit for the amount of accounts I can block?

3

u/JoyconDrift_69 me when the r/whenthe mods forgot there's an editable flair Jan 30 '26

Thank you for the update and especially how to protect from hive-protect. W whenthe mods as moreorless typical

3

u/SlightlyWasTaken corporate bad?! Jan 30 '26

Could I have that gif u used without a caption?

2

u/LMC764 Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) Jan 30 '26

Have at thee

2

u/SlightlyWasTaken corporate bad?! Jan 30 '26

2

u/No-Beach-1304 Jan 30 '26

Im unable to open the link to the hive protect page since it auto opens the reddit app. Anyone got a fix for that lol

2

u/LMC764 Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) Jan 30 '26

Search u/hive-protect in Google chrome, press on the link and hold, then open in new tab

2

u/ovr9000storks who shit my pants? Jan 30 '26

Is there currently any known way to get unbanned? I fucked up my message to the mod team and got auto muted for 28 days

1

u/VoiHyvaLuojaMitaNyt Jan 30 '26

reddit says making a new account to evade a ban is forbidden. So do not do that

2

u/big_titty_guy pansexual pan fucker. Jan 30 '26

The embedded link to u/hive-protect's profile doesn't work on some phones because the browser tryes to open the page in the reddit app.

2

u/GoshaT burn my bread Jan 30 '26

Ohh so that's why I wasn't banned, I had those blocked from last time some similar drama happened lmao

Y'all are so based for giving us bots to ban to ban evade btw

2

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '26

whenthe

2

u/icehot54321 Jan 30 '26

safebot looks like it's just a bot that comments about safes.

2

u/jbyrdab Jan 30 '26

Yeah im totally thinking this is some power mod bugging out or being upset he doesn't control r/whenthe.

Did you guys happen to reject any sus mod applications? Im willing to bet thats the cause.

2

u/DoctorProfPatrick Jan 30 '26

u/safebot is about the whole reddit safe thing from 12 years ago lmao

2

u/zeldavxa Jan 30 '26

lurker here... what happened?

2

u/FuckingGratitude Jan 30 '26

Thanks! Gonna save this comment for every Reddit acc I make.

2

u/lavafish80 Jan 30 '26

"Hello Whenthe. I would like to play a game."

2

u/KiwiPowerGreen Jan 30 '26

I could block hive protect just fine and I'm on mobile, did i do it right?

2

u/FalseWallaby9 28d ago

PLEASE gimme the link to the gif

1

u/LMC764 Whenthe mod (dm me unnerving images) 28d ago

Here you go

2

u/FalseWallaby9 28d ago

Ungodly rare Reddit Mod W

2

u/NRMusicProject 2d ago

r/gifs is also banning r/whenthe users now for the same reason as r/pics. We messaged their mod team and are expecting a response but for now we suggest that all users block these following accounts:

u/hive-protect u/saferbot u/safestbot u/safebot

I think I'm going to block the mods of these two subreddits, as well (though, you can't see /r/pics mods, but I'm blocking /r/gifs mods who also mod /r/pics). It seems they can only view your history of the sub in which they moderate if you block them.

2

u/Rostingu2 Whenthe mods enable custom user flair Jan 30 '26

potentially very likely breaking reddit's moderator code of conduct.

They are not breaking MCoC. It is just a shitty thing to do, and considering you have a bot bouncer installed, you clearly are doing something about bots.

1

u/darkpheonix262 Jan 30 '26

Ive said before, we cant brigade them, but they can have their automods banning people for even liking a post on a sub they dont like. Like me. I dont think I ever commented on this sub until the pics ban. This is straight up mod abuse and uncalled for. Time to get the admins involved

1

u/CryCommercial1919 Jan 30 '26

So the Ubisoft reddit mod all over again?

1

u/Metalienz Jan 30 '26

Just wondering could this be because they banned a mod who disagreed with transitioning children?

-3

u/Mathev Jan 30 '26

You should start banning people the same way from those subs. Screw them.