c/banned-memes-talk

That guy who said my banned 'vaccine math' meme was too edgy was totally right

I made this meme showing a chart of adverse reactions next to a graph of booster uptake, got it banned on two platforms. Some dude in a chat said it was 'too edgy for the algorithm' and I laughed at him. Three days later my account got a warning and the meme was removed everywhere. He literally called it before it happened, kinda funny now.

Tried to post a Pepe meme on a history forum and got banned within an hour

I thought it was just a harmless frog picture from a comic, but the mods said it was a hate symbol. They gave me a permanent ban with no warning. I looked it up afterward and learned about the whole ADL hate symbol database. Has anyone else run into a situation where a meme they thought was silly got them into real trouble online?

Remember when memes got banned for being 'rude' instead of political? Feels different now.

Back around 2015, I posted a meme making fun of a bad movie and it got taken down for being 'harassing' or whatever. Now I see memes calling politicians straight up crooks and they stay up for weeks before anything happens. It's like the rule book got thrown out and rewritten based on who's mad that day. What changed exactly, and why does it feel like we went from protecting feelings to picking sides?

Saw a meme about the Vietnam war get zucked off Facebook. 10 years ago that same image would have been shared by my grandpa with no issues.

Saw my local library's banned book display get taken down within 4 hours

I live in a small town in Kansas, and last month our library put up a display for Banned Books Week. They had classics like 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and '1984' with little notes about why they got challenged. By noon, a lady from the school board came in and made them take it down. She said it was 'promoting controversial materials' to children even though it was in the adult section. I asked a librarian about it the next day and she just shrugged and said 'you gotta pick your battles around here.' It made me think about how even well-intentioned displays get killed before anyone can actually see them. Has anyone else had a local library pull something like this recently?

Had a moderator in a UK politics forum tell me my memes were "too one-sided" and it changed how I source my images now

They said I only pulled screenshots from one outlet so I started cross-checking 3 different news sources before I even open Photoshop, has anyone else had to completely rework their meme game just to keep a post from getting nuked?

That viral "free speech" meme about the library got me banned from 3 Facebook groups last night...

I always figured those takedowns were exaggerated but after getting hit with a 30 day suspension for posting a cartoon of a burning book, I'm starting to think the algorithm really does pick sides on this stuff.

Spent $40 on a 'private' meme sharing app that got shut down in a week

I threw $40 at that app that promised uncensored meme sharing, and it got yanked from the store after 7 days. No refund, no warning. They said it was a 'server issue' but we all know it was pressure from the government. Is it even worth trying these underground platforms anymore?

Woke up to find my old Pepe meme account got nuked overnight

Logged into my burner account on 4chan last week and found every single post from 2016-2018 wiped clean. I had like 200+ Pepe the Frog memes saved in there, all the rare variations like Feels Good Man and the smug ones. The mods didn't even give a reason, just a generic "violation of policy" message. Made me think about how back in the day nobody cared about that stuff and now even old harmless frog memes get erased. Has anyone else lost a whole archive of classic banned memes without warning?

I spent $85 on a VPN after my meme got removed in Turkey

I made a stupid joke about a politician and the next day it was gone from every platform there. The VPN got me back to posting but honestly I'm still spooked about who's watching now. Has anyone else had a post vanish in a specific country like that?

Spent $200 on a VPN that promised uncensored access and got blocked from everything within a week

Signed up for a VPN last month thinking I could finally see memes from countries that ban them, but a week later my own internet provider blocked the VPN IP and I couldn't even load Reddit, has anyone found a service that actually works for getting around these blocks?

Heard a librarian in Portland say memes are protected under free speech

I was at the Multnomah County library last Tuesday and overheard a librarian telling a teen that memes count as political speech in most countries. She said that's why some governments ban them so quickly. It made me realize my own country isn't as open as I thought, since we still see memes taken down from platforms all the time. Has anyone else heard a similar take from an unexpected source?

The same banned meme keeps getting reposted with worse pixelation

There's this one political meme that gets taken down everywhere... a simple cartoon about a hand puppet. Every time I see it come back the quality is worse like someone screenshot a screenshot 20 times. I pointed out the original artist to a guy in a forum last week and he said it doesn't matter because the message is what counts. But if we're talking about free speech shouldn't we also care about the creator getting credited? Has anyone else noticed this pattern with other banned memes?

My neighborhood Facebook group just deleted a meme about the HOA president's lawn

I posted a silly edit of the HOA president's perfect grass with a bald spot drawn on it saying 'my lawn after a week without rain' and it got removed in 20 minutes. The admin sent me a warning about 'targeted harassment' even though nobody's name was in the picture. Doesn't that kind of overreach make you wonder who's really deciding what counts as free speech in local spaces?

Just realized how different banned memes looked in 2016 vs 2024

I was digging through an old hard drive from 8 years ago and found meme folders from when I was active on r/The_Donald. Back then the banned stuff was mostly Pepe the Frog edits and outright racist cartoons. Fast forward to last week, I saw a mod on a UK politics forum ban a meme that was just a screenshot of a Guardian headline with a sarcastic caption. The whole bar for what counts as hateful changed. Which side do you think shifted more, the platforms or the people making the memes?

The censored meme my professor warned me about finally showed up on a campus screen in Ohio

Last month, a visiting lecturer at Ohio State flashed a political cartoon that got the school's Twitter account suspended for three days. The meme basically poked fun at a foreign leader, but the university said it violated their harassment policy. Has anyone else run into a situation where a meme got someone in official trouble like that, and did the debate about free speech go anywhere?

The meme about that staged 2019 COVID lab video got scrubbed from 3 major platforms in one day

I used to just scroll past banned memes like whatever, free speech is complicated, but after that specific one disappeared I actually tracked down an archived copy and now I wonder how many other things I missed because they got removed before I even saw them.

Hot take: That meme about the mayor got way more traction after the takedown notice

I posted a sarcastic meme about a local council decision in Detroit and it got flagged within 3 hours, but the screenshot I shared of the removal email blew up to 50k views. Does taking something down just guarantee it spreads further, or is that just how the algorithm works here?

That time I posted a climate change meme in 3 different countries and only 1 banned it

I tried sharing a pretty mild meme about rising sea levels in local subreddits for the US, UK, and Australia last month. The US and UK versions stayed up fine, but the Australian one got flagged within 2 hours for 'misinformation' even though it just showed a graph from NOAA. I guess the free speech line moves depending on where you post, which is kind of wild. Has anyone else noticed certain topics getting banned way faster in one country vs another?

Last week I tried to post a meme about the 2020 NYC lockdown and got hit with a shadowban within an hour.

I shared a screenshot from a protest back in May 2020, just a guy holding a sign that said 'let us work.' It wasn't violent or anything, just a simple picture. But Instagram flagged it as misinformation before it even got 10 likes. Three years ago, you could post stuff like that and people would just argue in the comments. Now the platform decides for you what's true. This was last Tuesday around 10pm, and by Wednesday morning the post was gone with no appeal option. I'm curious how many people here have had a meme or image removed that wasn't hateful, just politically inconvenient.

I posted a meme about vaccine mandates and it got removed within an hour

Last week I shared a meme that just showed a graph comparing case numbers before and after mandates in my city. It wasn't even political, just data. The mods took it down saying it was 'misleading health information.' That got me thinking about how even basic facts can get labeled as dangerous now. Has anyone else had a harmless meme flagged just because it touched on a sensitive topic?

Hit 500 flagged posts in a single subreddit last night

I was checking my moderation log on a politics forum I help run and noticed I've personally flagged exactly 503 memes for removal since January. Most of them were just screenshots of tweets with no context, but three actually got the whole subreddit quarantined for a day. That number surprised me because I thought I was being pretty lenient, but 503 in 6 months tells me the platform's rules are way too vague. Has anyone else kept count of how many posts they've seen get pulled?

Read a post from a teacher about a meme that got her reprimanded last spring

I used to think banning memes was no big deal, just internet drama. But she described how a simple joke about standardized testing got flagged as disruptive and she almost lost her job. Makes me wonder who decides what's too far and if regular people get a say in it.

Unpopular opinion: that meme about the election got taken down faster than my old blog posts ever did

Back in 2015 I used to share political memes on Facebook without a second thought, nobody cared. But last month I posted a silly anti-censorship meme that referenced a specific 2020 event, and it was flagged within 2 hours. I tried reposting it on a smaller platform and even that got deleted after 50 shares. Has anyone else noticed how the rules changed so fast after 2016?

Saw a guy in a Berlin cafe get his phone taken over a meme...

I was at a spot near Alexanderplatz last month and this guy at the next table was showing his friend a picture. It was just a simple edit of a famous painting with a speech bubble. A cafe worker came over, looked at his screen, and told him he had to delete it or leave. The guy argued for a minute but then just shut his phone off. It wasn't even a political figure, just a joke about art history. Makes you wonder what counts as 'harmful' now. Has anyone else seen something get shut down that just seemed totally harmless?