Forum users report censorship: deleted posts and blacklists

Forum users report censorship: deleted posts and blacklists

Surveillance and censorship on internet forums are no longer a suspicion but an uncomfortable certainty. An initial post, linking to a thread on a well-known economics and current affairs forum, vanished without a trace. The response was swift: "We have run into some problems. The requested topic could not be found, it has probably been deleted." What seemed like a technical error quickly turned into a direct accusation: "Well, this is VERY serious. For censorship. For creating blacklists. For informing the government snitches."

Deleted posts and the shadow of the European law

The debate soon pointed to those responsible. The European Union's Digital Services Act, whose point of no return is set for March 2026, was mentioned as the legal framework that would have legitimised this surveillance. "This topic was born in March '26 with the European digital services law. We did nothing and now you can see it clearly, although the issue goes back two years," one participant declared. The feeling that the forum has been infiltrated for years by intelligence services, such as Spain's CNI, hung over the entire conversation.

The mechanics of censorship described by participants are not those of the old moderators, but something subtler and automatic. There is talk of a system that filters messages containing certain words or phrases, sends them to specific inboxes and takes preventive actions with some supervision. "It probably filters messages with certain words or phrases that are sent to specific inboxes and take preventive actions," one participant explained. Others went further, claiming there are "CMs and trolls who are previously paid to destabilise the forum, inject propaganda and generate a lot of traffic."

Personal experiences: deleted posts and banned accounts

The theory rests on concrete experiences. Several participants described how their messages were left pending review, unpublished and invisible to everyone else, and how their accounts were blocked without explanation. "They had a MODERATOR who I believe was the OP of the thread itself, which is why I say it seemed like a sub-contract," one participant recounted, claiming to have been banned three times in a row after seeing his messages deleted. The sense of arbitrariness is total: "A few days ago I deleted a message I hadn't even written. Nothing is the same anymore."

The conversation drifted towards the existence of blacklists and collaboration with the government. A report by the CNI (Spain's intelligence service) was mentioned, aimed at pursuing conspiracy theorists, dissidents and deniers through a database. Irony also had its place: "Does Garzón know about this?" one participant wondered. The response to surveillance, according to some, is resignation: "What the hell are you complaining about now? What the hell do you expect? Are you surprised?"

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Censorship in forums is no longer a theory. It is a practice documented by those who suffer it. The question is not whether it exists, but who carries it out and for what purposes. With the Digital Services Act as a backdrop, the line between moderation and ideological control blurs. And meanwhile, messages keep disappearing.