/r/Aquariums Sonic Boom Post

Submission 9,116

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About

/r/Aquariums Sonic Boom Post refers to a moderation controversy involving the removal of a Reddit post on the aquariums subreddit related to the Hamas-Israel Conflict. In early August 2024, Redditor /u/WassufWonka made a post seeking advice on how to protect their 33-gallon aquarium from sonic booms emanating from Israeli jets flying over Lebanon. The post was deleted by /r/Aquariums moderators shortly after it went up, prompting other Redditors to brigade the subreddit with more queries related to the war in the Middle East as some felt it was censorship. Following the backlash from users, mods eventually reinstated the original post and stated the initial removal was made out of a concern for people trolling and stirring up drama about the war.

Origin

On August 7th, 2024, Redditor /u/WassufWonka made a post on /r/Aquariums^[1] asking for advice on how to insulate their 33-gallon aquarium from sonic booms. The user relayed how sonic booms from Israeli jets flying over Lebanon sometimes shattered glass, causing them to worry about their aquarium cracking or breaking (seen below).

The post was removed by moderators the day it was posted, causing many /r/Aquariums users, as well as Redditors from other subreddits, to weigh in on what they saw as unfair moderation. Later on August 8th, Redditor^[4] /u/HydeVDL reposted /u/WassufWonka's post with the caption, "very high IQ mods on this sub for deleting this post :)" and gathered over 400 upvotes in four days (seen below, left).

/r/Aquariums moderators also removed and subsequently reinstated informative posts that were not brigading attempts from other Redditors, as shown below, right.^[8]

Spread

/r/Aquariums moderators' decision to delete /u/WassufWonka's discussion thread about the sonic booms led many Redditors to brigade the subreddit with posts in protest of what they perceived as censorship. These posts typically rephrased the original query or posed a sarcastic question in direct reference to the war in the Middle East.

On August 9th, 2024, Redditor^[2] /u/Guilisimo reposted /u/WassufWonka's original question with a There Is No War In Ba Sing Se meme edited onto it, while Redditor^[3] /u/ Careful_Purchase_394 reposted the question with the addendum "(P.s im not middle eastern so you can leave this one up)."

Also on August 9th, the controversy was reposted to X / Twitter by X^[5] user @xieish, who gathered over 138,000 likes in three days (seen below, left). X^[6] user @gothamgrrls reposted a deleted protest post from /r/Aquariums on August 9th as well, gathering over 40,000 likes in three days (seen below, right).

Moderator Response

On August 9th, 2024, /r/Aquariums moderator /u/squeakytea^[7] made a post addressing the controversy surrounding /u/WassufWonka's purported censorship (seen below). In the response, Redditor /u/squeakytea stated that the mods sometimes remove things "in anticipation of them becoming a shitshow, especially if they've already recieved satisfactory answers," adding that, "This was one of those cases." The post received over 130 comments in three days.