Hey there! There have been rumors spreading around Scratch concerning false/mass reporting. That's why I've created an informational topic to explain the truth behind it.

Before we get into the rumors behind it, some users have asked what false/mass reporting is. I'll provide definitions myself.

FALSE REPORTING

verb. When someone reports a project for no reason, in hopes that it gets taken down. These people get alerted.

MASS REPORTING

verb. When multiple users report a project for no reason, a project gets automatically unshared to be reviewed by the Scratch Team. If it follows the Community Guidelines, it will be taken back up within a few hours, and the users who mass reported get alerts. If not, it will stay unshared.

However, some users have claimed that they were banned because of false/mass reporting. However, that's not entirely true.

If you've been banned for over a few hours because of a false report, then it's not a false report. The same applies for mass reporting. There is no need to worry; if you're actually following the rules, then you should be fine.

Also, mass reporting is often used as an excuse by some Scratchers when their projects get taken down by the Scratch Team. Some are legitimate, but some of them literally share the reason you have the alert in the alert. If it says “your project is taken down for having swear words in your project”, for instance, that's not a false report.

The Scratch Team looks at reports before banning a user. However, they have an automated system so that it takes a lot of false reports to take it down automatically for a few hours.

(Source)

Here's an example of a project that was taken down but brought back up because of mass reporting:



(Source)

So don't worry. If it follows the rules, it will be back up soon.

The Scratch Team reviews a user before filing a report. Trust me. Once, I reported a bug in a project (which turned out to be a keyboard error). Later, the Scratch Team sent me an alert that appeared at the top of my messages, warning me to only report things that conflict with the Community Guidelines. I've accidentally experienced this myself. Please trust me.

That's to say that they read reports after a certain period of time. It's not to say that mass reporting doesn't exist.


However, I would like to make a suggestion: don't talk about false/mass reporting. Half of the Scratch website barely knew what it was until a few Scratchers started making projects about them that got popular.

Oh, and this is a newer edit. Over time, the rules changed. It used to say “false/mass reporting does not exist”, but it turned out to change in 2020 because of large website trafficing. There are a lot of new users – which just means much more users who break the rules. We need the system, and removing the automatic ban system is a rejected suggestion (see The Official List of Rejected Suggestions). They need the system – don't abuse it.

Thanks for your view! I hope that clears things up a bit. Don't forget to keep Scratching!

Can't a project get taken down if it was reported several amount of times? But being banned from getting false reported is definitely 100% a myth. It's like saying you can breath in space without an oxygen tank.

-SNIP-

It's true that projects can be removed automatically because of mass reporting:

Scratch Wiki wrote:

If many users report the same project, it is temporarily removed from the site.

Source

You can be banned if multiple people report your forum posts:

Scratch Wiki wrote:

On Scratch 1.4 and in Scratch 2.0, if a post is reported four times by four different Scratcher accounts, it is automatically hidden and the user who posted it is temporarily banned for the remainder of one day, during which time the Scratch Team can look into the issue.

Source

Maximouse wrote:

You can be banned if multiple people report your forum posts:

Scratch Wiki wrote:

On Scratch 1.4 and in Scratch 2.0, if a post is reported four times by four different Scratcher accounts, it is automatically hidden and the user who posted it is temporarily banned for the remainder of one day, during which time the Scratch Team can look into the issue.

Source

Huh. Didn't know that. I was talking about a perma ban rather than a temporary one, though.

Also,

system64 wrote:

So far, i have been banned twice because of other people mass-reporting my projects. I think that this shouldn't happen.

Source

Maximouse wrote:

Also,

system64 wrote:

So far, i have been banned twice because of other people mass-reporting my projects. I think that this shouldn't happen.

Source

I'd probably get a good review on this information. My sources said the exact opposite of what you did.

i cant believe ive been lied to all my life…

Project was put back up, there wasn’t anything wrong with it. False / mass reporting does indeed exist. I was not banned for it though, nor do I think the alert that I got counts towards anything.

However it definitely seems to me like a lot of people are just claiming to have had this happen or are running with it because they are worried / heard one of their favorite scratchers or a friend use it as an excuse and want to defend that person. I believe this is more of an issue the more people talk about it and once it blows over like a trend might (hopefully), a lot of users will forget about it.

As far as I know the worst thing that happens is projects get taken down, and if that’s the case you just have it put back up if there is nothing wrong with it. You just have to be patient.

Wahsp wrote:

-snip-

Project was put back up, there wasn’t anything wrong with it. False / mass reporting does indeed exist. I was not banned for it though, nor do I think the alert that I got counts towards anything.

However it definitely seems to me like a lot of people are just claiming to have had this happen or are running with it because they are worried / heard one of their favorite scratchers or a friend use it as an excuse and want to defend that person. I believe this is more of an issue the more people talk about it and once it blows over like a trend might (hopefully), a lot of users will forget about it.

As far as I know the worst thing that happens is projects get taken down, and if that’s the case you just have it put back up if there is nothing wrong with it. You just have to be patient.

Ahh i see, theres people who mass report amd people who fake it

I have edited the original post based off of all of the proven info above. Thank you, and sorry for the confusion.

MeowyTitan08 wrote:

Can't a project get taken down if it was reported several amount of times? But being banned from getting false reported is definitely 100% a myth. It's like saying you can breath in space without an oxygen tank.

that's where you're wrong. @goldeneaglestudios made a project about it and has screenshotted evidence that he got banned because of it.

martinat388 wrote:

MeowyTitan08 wrote:

Can't a project get taken down if it was reported several amount of times? But being banned from getting false reported is definitely 100% a myth. It's like saying you can breath in space without an oxygen tank.

that's where you're wrong. @goldeneaglestudios made a project about it and has screenshotted evidence that he got banned because of it.

It's easy to create a mockup like that. Many users can make those.

Super_Scratch_Bros20 wrote:

martinat388 wrote:

MeowyTitan08 wrote:

Can't a project get taken down if it was reported several amount of times? But being banned from getting false reported is definitely 100% a myth. It's like saying you can breath in space without an oxygen tank.

that's where you're wrong. -snip- made a project about it and has screenshotted evidence that he got banned because of it.

It's easy to create a mockup like that. Many users can make those.

Case in point, notice the grammatical errors in his image. The Scratch Team wouldn't make these mistakes.

BearSlothCoding wrote:

I wrote:

It's easy to create a mockup like that. Many users can make those.

Case in point, notice the grammatical errors in his image. The Scratch Team wouldn't make these mistakes.

Here's the example used in Scratch Wiki:



The Scratch Team thinks carefully before banning someone. They aren't the kinds of “people who aren't hesitant to ban you” like some users want you to believe. The Scratch Team won't make these kinds of mistakes.

Super_Scratch_Bros20 wrote:

martinat388 wrote:

MeowyTitan08 wrote:

Can't a project get taken down if it was reported several amount of times? But being banned from getting false reported is definitely 100% a myth. It's like saying you can breath in space without an oxygen tank.

that's where you're wrong. @goldeneaglestudios made a project about it and has screenshotted evidence that he got banned because of it.

It's easy to create a mockup like that. Many users can make those.

As long as you have a screenshot and reasonable HTML skills, you can get ‘evidence’ of anything. for example, I had a screenshot where I had so many messages it went off the edge of the page. Was it real? Of course not! Anyone can say they been ‘false reported’ make a fake ban screen and then use it as a publicity stunt. That is why all the ‘famous scratchers’ make such a big deal of it. To get followers.

I can only really agree partially with this. While, yes, perhaps maybe saying a false report can lead to a ban is incorrect, I can say, that perhaps, it's not completely accurate 100% of the time. While I haven't experienced this first-hand, I've had IRL friends experience the case of projects taken down for either nonsense or extremely vague reasons, like when someone (Keeping them anonymous) shared a project explaining how they felt about some of the unfair alerts they've received, like one, where they used music for a review, which is clearly fair use. It even says such on the DMCA page of Scratch, that they keep in mind fair use, from the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107. Who should I trust now, the Scratch team, or the Copyright Act? Not only that, but their project explaining their situation was taken down for being “Inappropriate.” ALL it showed was an alert of that project. Oh, but that's too much for an 8 y.o., yeah, totally, not unfair at all.

Let's put it here, continuing this fair use thing.
People on YouTube are having videos either demonetized or completely taken down for very short snippits of copyrighted audio, which will fall under the limited use part of fair use. It's the companies and the automatic systems being greedy for money and abusing their power and the fact that YouTube doesn't intervene after the claim is sent. Therefore, the companies can just claim even two seconds of their music, and steal the creator's money, and leading them to either leave or have their channel banned.

But, yeah, that's the creators fault, totally, couldn't be a single issue, just blame the creators for using the fair use law.

TL;DR: False bans? No. False alerts? Yes. Problem? Sort of.

But, what do I know? I barely have 50 followers, I'm not a judge, or a Scratch Team member. I'm just a small Scratcher who puts two years into a spaghetti-coded mess that I call an RPG.

Anyone can edit the text of the report page, there is even a tutorial about it (I will not provide a link). Anyway, a project made by a famous scratcher (it was not @GoldenEageleStudios) that was about mass reporting well… got mass reported. There was nothing wrong with the project, and as far as I know, there is not a rule that says

Please do not complain about moderator actions

Sometimes it's for a good reason (like a project with swear words) or it's bad (reporting a project that follows the community guidelines)

Basic88 wrote:

Anyone can edit the text of the report page

And there is proof that the one that started it was edited:

“None Your” should be “Note: your” and considering it's an automated ban message, it should be correct.

(my opinion changed so the text was removed by me)