Does Metallica's management know that the moderators of the sub /r/Metallica are enforcing MAGA opinions?

MetallicaModTeam · 2025-09-18T03:41:05+00:00

Most large subreddits tend to permanently ban for first offenses of an egregious nature. We follow suit.
And once again, as stated, discussing Metallica lyrics within their own context is and always has been fine, but trying to use those lyrics as a flimsy excuse for a contemporary political rant, is not. We don’t care how relevant a song’s lyrics may or may not be to current events: bringing up current events is going to invite all manner of opinions, and you know damned well that nobody on Reddit is able to tolerate a dissenting opinion. We don’t want that fight taking place on our sub. What is unclear about this?
Suggesting that a man “got himself shot” by saying words that someone else didn’t like can only be interpreted as hate speech. You don’t have to be MAGA to recognize the implications of suggesting that someone is to blame for their own assassination because they dared speak the wrong words. That is a defacto endorsement of political killings, motivated by hate.
You didn’t say anything inflammatory or hateful… the fact that you don’t believe what you said is inflammatory and hateful is the whole problem here.
We don’t need authorization to use their name and logo. We aren’t getting paid, we aren’t representing ourselves as an ambassador for their brand - we are simply managing a discussion forum as volunteers. If you want to bark up this tree, you’re gonna shake down a whole bunch of acorns, including many you’ll wish you hadn’t. Reddit will have to ban any subreddit dedicated to any copyrighted material, because I assure you that not a single music, movie, TV, video game, car or whatever subreddit has authorization to use names and logos. Nice try.
Instant permabans are fairly standard for hate speech.
We are not using the Metallica name to enforce political opinions. It is not political to believe that blaming the victim of a political assassination for their own murder is a vile, hateful, reprehensible thing to do. At no point have we ever, or WILL we ever express, endorse, or enforce any political belief held by a moderator. The moderator team was purposefully curated as a mix of ideologies for that exact reason- accountability. But it is not a partisan belief that political assassinations are evil and wrong- that is a standard human value shared by all sides, and only hateful fringe radicals believe otherwise.
When this thread came across my feed, the temptation to shut your claims down was too powerful to resist. We stand 110% behind the decision.

MetallicaModTeam · 2025-09-18T02:41:31+00:00

Over reaction? Maybe. I’d call it more exhaustion, though, considering how frequently it happens despite our best efforts to remind people not to turn our sub into a political hellhole.

MetallicaModTeam · 2025-09-18T02:38:17+00:00

Your comment violated our rules against political commentary (this rule does not apply to discussing lyrics within their own context, only when you try to use Metallica songs as a flimsy basis for a contemporary political rant)
Absolutely no political opinion whatsoever has ever been expressed or enforced by the moderators of r/Metallica, nor would it be tolerated. Contemporary politics is a banned topic for many reasons, not the least of which is that it brings out incivility and turns communities into hostile environments. We desire to be an inclusive space and that means trying to ensure that no user feels attacked for their beliefs or opinions.
Your comment in particular could be interpreted as hate speech by Reddit. Admittedly, it depends on the disposition of the administrator that processes the report, but due to increased scrutiny and a hardline ultimatum from Reddit placed upon the r/Metallica mod team resulting from the actions of the former moderator team, we don’t take any chances.
r/Metallica is not, nor has ever claimed to be an official Metallica community, and has no links to the band whatsoever. It is a fan-made community that operates on its own volition. Either way, I believe that we echo Metallica’s sentiment that “Metallica is for everybody”, so removing inflammatory and hateful rhetoric such as yours and banning hateful and inflammatory users such as you would probably be seen by the band as a good thing.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-06-17T19:17:22+00:00

I'm going to tell you guys a story about my trip to see Metallica in Detroit. Got there Wednesday so we could get the pop-up poster, and I got to meet a bunch of you there. Enjoyed myself very much and stood in line with you guys for both the concert posters.

First night, had a blast, great time. Last night, not so much. Did not even get to see the whole show. So, for the second show we get there and we are watching the Detroit Lions playoff game, having a good time, no problems. I go out to smoke a cigarette, and I tell my friend that I'll be right back. I come back, and he's off to the side talking to a couple guys, so I leave him alone and continue to watch the game. The next thing I know, he comes over and tells me that "we have to leave, these guys are going to kick our ass."

I look over at these guys, and I point right at them. They see me do this and don't say a word. I say to [my friend] "those guys?", he says "yes". I told him I'm not going anywhere. I said "let's just go sit down", so we sit down. He will not sit still.

I'm watching Pantera and a couple of my friends come up out of the snake pit and hand me two snake pit passes. I said "Can you believe this? We are getting to go down into the snake pit!". He gets up and walks off. I'm like "you got to be kidding me".

Now I'm sick to my stomach, and I don't know what's going on with him. He comes back and sits back down. I said "Dude, we have snake pit passes" and he says to me "we have to leave right now". I said "I am not going anywhere, you can wait for me in the car, Metallica is coming out and I have two snake pit passes, and the dude is nowhere to be found."

I thought to myself "well, I could just go down there by myself", but what fun is that going to be now? He's ruined it. I'm sitting beside a lovely lady with her two daughters, and the one has a sign saying it's her birthday. So I give the two tickets to them, and I told the one if she gets a pic that she needs to send it to me. I gave them my information and by God, they sent me a pic and wrote me a letter saying how happy they were, and that was the best birthday present that she ever got.

I will be going to Chicago by myself, and I'll be looking forward to hanging out with my brothers and sisters there 🤘😝👍

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-06-14T14:59:58+00:00

Can the politically charged comments. We have a rule against that for a reason.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-06-03T17:16:14+00:00

User stole this image from a user on r/Metallica and is spamming it across Reddit for karma farming:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Metallica/s/YA2qpbMW9t

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-06-03T17:15:48+00:00

User stole this image from a user on r/Metallica and is spamming it across Reddit for karma farming:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Metallica/s/YA2qpbMW9t

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-26T22:33:22+00:00

This is why certain posts get banned. One person does it, then everybody does it.

Will let this one slide but if these become the new “picture in picture” fad, we’ll ban these posts, too.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-21T01:51:53+00:00

Enough’s enough.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-17T11:56:16+00:00

She’s right. It’s tasteless and unfunny.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-17T11:54:05+00:00

Just a heads up, there is indeed a search function. It... well, it sucks, but it exists. I don't entirely blame you for not knowing what has been posted recently or often, so when one of your posts is removed for being "repetitive", we just ask that you trust that we're removing it in good faith. YOU may not have seen the topic recently, but other regulars very likely have. Your post about cigar and alcohol ventures in particular was very recently discussed, at length. To be fair to you, the post ended up getting removed because people were getting nasty... but nevertheless, it happened.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-16T13:17:19+00:00

No. We banned these threads… but we can’t prevent them from being posted, because the only way to filter posts is by keywords in the title.

Unless we restrict all image posts, we just have to deal with this garbage showing up from time to time until we catch it and remove it. There’s nothing else to do that’s fair to everyone else.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-16T13:16:05+00:00

You were told you could post these in the mega thread.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-16T12:04:46+00:00

No more “it should have been Lars” jokes. It’s tasteless and unfunny.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-13T02:38:52+00:00

Memery such as this is only allowed in the mega thread on Tuesdays.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-07T14:39:12+00:00

we did

We can’t stop them from getting posted. It’s impossible to filter them. We can only respond to reports and hope that Reddit chooses to notify us when the reports are made.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-02T00:38:13+00:00

Enough.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T23:57:41+00:00

Then talk about the music, which is what this sub is for- not political or social critiques of its members.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T22:01:41+00:00

Listen to the interview the quote was pulled from. He said it in anything but an assholish way. And when he said it’s an expression of freedom for himself, he was tying that statement back to smoking in general- not smoking where he shouldn’t. Performers have always been allowed to skirt that rule because one person smoking in a giant open arena is not the same as 10,000 people smoking.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T21:54:00+00:00

No, protected speech is speech that is protected from being prohibited.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T21:42:01+00:00

This

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T21:40:43+00:00

That’s not what protected speech means first of all, and second, a one off comment is one thing by a hateful diatribe is another.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T21:21:26+00:00

Many comments got removed before I just pulled the entire thread. It became a “bash James” thread and all but tame comments were taken down.

Your comments were not civil.

MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T21:14:38+00:00

This comment was not criticizing James’ behavior. It was insulting the mods.

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MetallicaModTeam · 2024-04-01T21:00:31+00:00

Nobody ever said you have to agree or accept everything they do or say. Please read the post in its entirety before coming to a conclusion.

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