Case 1
Moderator carrotcypher says “removed for paywall.” When asked about which rule this breaks, receives no response. The post is then locked.
Case 2
Same as the first, except this time there is no paywall - the link is to a freely accessible advocate.com page.
It is censored with no explanation.
Case 3
Same as Case 2, moderators censor the post and leave no explanation.
Case 4
This one is finally given a removal reason: a rule that does not exist in the sidebar, and seems to have nothing to do with the post (“Your post has been removed for being too specific to a company or single product.”)
But in a censored comment, the OP of the post says they received a different removal reason:
This time, other people notice the censorship and the nonsensical nature of the official removal reason.
Since this removal, there has been no further post of this news in r/privacy. Sources tell me the moderators refuse to explain their decision.
Well, there is a problem with this idea, admittedly. All the missing posts are from one user, @AkaSci@fosstodon.org
At the same time, however, it doesn’t look like he suddenly became a Musk fan, so…
There’s also no archive of these apart from Google’s previews.
AkaSci 🛰️: “Inside Elon Musk’s War on Wash…” Feb 7, 2025 — One of the Project 2025 lead authors, Russell Vought, said in a speech 2 years ago that he wanted civil servants to be “traumatically affected”
AkaSci 🛰️: Feb 22, 2025 — Other astronauts are speaking out against Elon Musk and offering their opinions on his character or rather the lack thereof.
AkaSci 🛰️: Mar 10, 2025 — Elon now claims that the cyberattack on X was launched by Ukraine. Without much proof. He indicated that the IP addresses came from Ukraine.
This is the only Elon-critical post from this user that comes up on Google and hasn’t been deleted:
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/112838449092743174
EDIT: I contacted AkaSci, and he informed me that he more than likely did delete those posts, as “I tend to delete old posts that are political or news related.” So it seems there’s no evidence his abuses have leaked onto FOSStodon yet.