>

Any automatic ban seems designed to influence behavior, but to be clear the definition you provide doesn't seem to come from Reddit's definition listed above.
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I have a dummy account I use to test mod stuff, and just now I used it to confirm that a message must be sent to a user when they are banned from a sub. It is not possible to issue a ban for what you describe, or for any other reason, without messaging the banned user.
Since Reddit requires a message to be sent, even if the subreddit doesn't want to send one when it bans you, it's safe to assume that this does not violate the harassment policy. >

Why would you ban someone for posting in another subreddit though? >

The "why" is easy.  Because it makes moderating some subs easier.  Let's say I run a Pro X sub, and people from the Anti-X sub keep showing up and harssing people.  I can pre-emptively have a better experience for my user by not allowing anybody from the anti-x sub from posting.
If you think that is right or wrong, that's a different question, but the "why" is "it pre-emptively bans a number of users who you would have to ban anyways" >

A cynic might also point out that it helps create and enforce a certain ideological homogeneity that has become a defining feature of post-2016 Reddit. >


it helps create and enforce a certain ideological homogeneity

Yes, exactly.  The subreddit for trans people to talk about trans people things is not the place for anti-trans people to come debate whether trans people's gender identities should be respected.  If you want to argue about that shit, take it somewhere else. >


If you want to argue about that shit, take it somewhere else.

Where? There is no where else to take it, at least not on this site. Subreddits like r/gendercritical were very careful about enforcing site rules, but they were still banned because it was a feminist sub that disagreed with Reddit on trans issues. >


Where? 

Not my problem.  It's discussed in a number of subs on a regular basis. This one, for instance. Not in the trans subs.  That's not what they're for. >

The point is that reddit eliminated the places where it was appropriate to discuss them.  There is nowhere on reddit transgenderism is discussed without walking on eggshells, because the subs run the risk of getting banned if they don’t heavily moderate the discussion.  Even, for example, r/4chan heavily censors it. >

Can you find any examples of trans critical posts in those subs? Actual examples that show the conversation wasn't shut down?
Even in r/conservative they put out an announcement that reddit has threatened to ban people over "misgendering" so they recommend all those discussions be moved to discord instead. 
Let's be clear. I personally know accounts that have been banned for disagreeing that transwomen are women. You can say the Earth is flat, you can believe in witchcraft, you can openly be a communist. But to say that transwomen aren't women invites banning. 
In fact, in /r/askaconservative/ there was a post asking conservatives why they disagree with trans ideology. I answered and gave my reasons. I was very careful not to use any insulting language. But still I got a message from Reddit that someone had reported me to admins for "hate" and warned me that future violations would suspend my account. So how the hell was I even supposed to answer the question??  I alerted the mods, who told me yeah that sucks, Reddit does that, but it's out of their hands. >


That felt like harassment, and I know for a fact that many, many other users like me got the same messages, which seems like harassment in bulk.

Question, how would Reddit inform you were banned without a private message? Would no message be acceptable to? Your account just restricts some unknown of subs? >

It wouldn't matter unless I tried to interact with the sub in question, at which point, I initiate contact. Being unable to post, being met with a message that "You have been banned for XYZ" would not constitute harassment. >


"...behaving in a way that would discourage a reasonable person from participating on Reddit...:

Doesn't that depend on what subs get flagged? >

I'm not sure what you mean, but since the dangerous/subversive subs are now banned by Reddit as a matter of rule, you should be able to assume that any remaining sub is allowed by Silicon Valley standards. Therefore participation in any remaining sub should not be "discouraged" by the terms of the harassment policy.
Disclaimer: I am not a subreddit expert; I have no idea what may or may not exist out there. I do know that the flagged subreddit that sparked this CMV is incredibly mainstream. >


I'm not sure what you mean, but since the dangerous/subversive subs are now banned by Reddit as a matter of rule,

Redpill

I do know that the flagged subreddit that sparked this CMV is incredibly mainstream.

So mainstream you won't even name it. >

I mean I've posted there in the last day or two. My original post invites you to check my history. FFS, man :) >

And now I know why you couldn't just name it. >

Do you? Seems like maybe you don't... since, you know, I told you to go look... >

I looked and found you posted on Joe 'Dr Horsepaste' Rogan defending Ayn Rand. I'd be embarrassed too. >

I'm not embarrassed, but I respectfully invite you to educate yourself. >

I agree with OP but I like to remind people that it should be at the discretion of the community not the individual. >

I've never posted or commented on r/conservative, but am permabanned and never got a message about it >

Yeah, iirc you don't receive a ban message if you haven't posted in a sub. Someone got into a spat with a member of the mod team of /r/cozyplaces and used a script to ban every mod on the team (including our internal bots that never post outside the sub lol) from all 20ish subs they mod, I didn't get a message from any of them. >

I don't understand how I got banned then. The only thing I ever did in that sub was comment. Wasn't even in favor of that sub reddit community. 
Edit: I have one intentions of joining the BLM subreddit, I just thought it was a little stupid. >

I really like how you broke it down to show the irony of such messages against Reddit harrassment policies.  I share your view in that it seems to oppose discussion on Reddit, to follow someone & ban them for mere participation in another sub. I was shocked the first time it happened to me. But it may not fall under harrassment because it's not plural messages, but rather silencing, blacklisting, and possibly bullying to get people to leave certain subs or fearful to join certain subs. >

A couple of points:

You have to have had a history in that subreddit for the automod script to be able to automatically ban you. There's no way for the bot to automatically get a list of users and check their comment / post history, unless those users have interacted with the sub the automod is set up for in the recent past.
In other words, you can't be banned from Community A for interacting with Community B unless you're already interacting with Community A, in which case you should've read its rules (which presumably say "don't interact with Community B").
It isn't a threat, or harassment -- nor does it follow the user from sub to sub. It's a direct message (doesn't appear on any sub), informing the user that they do not have access to a particular community; after that, there are no more messages.
Subreddit mods can't ban users without notifying them (reddit employees can, but not the volunteer sub mods). In other words, if ban notifications could count as harrassment, reddit would have had to give subreddit mods the ability to shadowban people, which they didn't.

BTW, I'm a huge critic of this kind of "autoban" approach from moderators. I think generally it reflects a mod style that's super autocratic and heavy handed, and intended to create as much of an echo chamber for that mod / mod-team as possible. At the same time, being able to create your own echo chamber is part of what reddit offers, so it is what it is I suppose. >

This recently happened to me with r/justiceserved.  I haven't even dropped a comment in that sub for months, and all of a sudden, I recieved a permaban for participating in a sub they don't like...and they wouldn't even tell me which one it was.
This is literally how subreddits turn into little safe-spaces, where no one is ever challenged on their worldview, or introduced to something outside that cognitive bubble.  No one will ever learn, grow, or adapt to new information, if you are never exposed to anyone other than those who already agree with your preconceived opinions. >

Would it not count as harassment if the message was written by a person? That is to say, if I was a moderator and you joined my sub, and upon reviewing your history, I determined that you displayed behavioral signs that are inappropriate for my sub . . . well, you're not saying that I shouldn't be allowed to preemptively ban you . . . you're just saying that an automated message telling you about the ban is "harassment."
So if I hand-type a message to you which effectively does the same thing . . . is that acceptable? >

This is a perfect test, actually. If a person was going around targeting users of a certain subreddit to tell them that they were banned from another unrelated subreddit, that action would almost certainly be considered harassment. The key element is the active initiation of the conversation by the person going out of their way to track down people to ban.
Like, it would be different if someone posted on a sub, and then the mods messaged them, but here we're talking about following the user to a different sub and then messaging them out of the blue.
Just because it's being done en mass and by bots doesn't seem to me to alleviate it of the harassing elements described above. >

In other words, if the hypothetical situation above were the case, you'd argue that I'm harassing you by going through your history and preemptively kicking you out of my sub.
Which means you do want to have a conversation about the legitimacy of the core behavior, right? The presence of a bot only obscures the real issue. We should be talking about whether its ethical for a moderator to preemptively ban someone. >

No, I think you'd be wrong to do that, but you'd be harassing me if, out of the blue, you sent me a private message criticizing my post history and telling me you were banning me because of it. In that case, you're following me around reddit and sending me nasty PMs. >

Right. My point is that, in the OP, you made it clear you weren't interested in discussing the ethical status of such behavior. But we've just established that there's no functional difference between using a bot to do it and doing it yourself.
Which means the conversation is at an impasse . . . unless you want to discuss the ethical status of moderators preemptively banning people because of their platform history. >

I'm happy to discuss that (I think it's generally short-sighted approach and that a homogenous userbase won't be particularly interesting to anyone), but that's not the point of my CMV.
My point is that the sending of a private message - by a bot or a person - in that context constitutes harassment by the definition provided by Reddit. That seems to be true regardless of whether you think the underlying policy is ethical or not. >

Ok, so, if I've got you right, you're saying that a moderator just shouldn't bother with a message? That preemptively banning people is fine (or at the least, not the topic at hand), but that they just shouldn't tell the user they've been banned? 🤨 >

Well, I think auto-banning people is bad, but it's not harassment. This is essentially an accurate summation of my position, yes.
If you ban me and I try to post on your sub but can't, I initiated contact and you responded.
If you ban me and send me a message out of nowhere to tell me you've done so, despite my not having visited your sub, you're following me around reddit and sending me private messages. This seems to be harassment, by Reddit's definition above. >

So it's only the unexpected message that's harassment to you, not the content of that message?

you're following me around reddit

No one is following you, an automated system doesn't "follow" you, it monitors one sub in perticular (or maybe a few). If you go from a block sub to a non block sub the bot doesn't "know" this, it only knows when you cross specific thresholds. >

It's the unexpected message and it's explicit/implicit content. Certainly it's not enough to simply be an unexpected message, since that would make any unsolicited PM harassment. But an unexpected message designed to alienate and attack seems to trip Reddit's definitions.
Follows is a turn of phrase. >


the harassing message is private, but it's still harassing.

Harassing

the action of subjecting someone to aggressive pressure or intimidation.

In your view, what are the bots pressuring or intimidating a person to do? >

Obviously, they are casting a normative judgement on the users' participation in a certain subreddit or subreddits. They are seeking to pressure users at-large to not use those subreddits. That seems fairly obvious. >

Sure but can you tell me what you think the objective of auto-bans is so I have a starting point? >

I would imagine the objective is the mods giving out the bans do not value contributions from users who would visit the targeted subs, and consider those users to be disruptive or otherwise non-desirable for whatever reason. >

Interesting perspective. Problem with that is that blanket bans catch people who may go to these subs to disagree with the fundamental premise of the subs (i.e. people who stand opposed to the perceived "disruptive or otherwise non-desirable" and would therefore, in theory be contributive and desirable).
The objective of banning all users of targeted subs seems to me to to be about deincentivizing the use of those subs completely, by all users without prejudice.
I feel like this was the justification explicitly stated back when every sub had a stickied post about antivax or anti-science subs during the pandemic (I can't remember exactly). The goal was  to choke the subs out of existence. >


The objective of banning all users of targeted subs seems to me to to be about deincentivizing the use of those subs completely, by all users without prejudice.

But you that is just what you think, I think it's this 

the objective is the mods giving out the bans do not value contributions from users who would visit the targeted subs, and consider those users to be disruptive or otherwise non-desirable for whatever reason.

My reasoning makes more sence, because that is the outcome of the bans. Is it not possible that you are misinterpreting the purpose?

I feel like this was the justification explicitly stated back when every sub had a stickied post about antivax or anti-science subs during the pandemic (I can't remember exactly). The goal was to choke the subs out of existence.

Could that not lead credence to my view as well? That the mods felt like people who posted in anti-vax reddits offered no valuable contributions as opposed to trying to pressure people into not having those views? >


CMV: Using bots to send "permanent ban" messages to users who post in disfavored subs violates Reddit's Harassment Policy

In order for something to be Harassment is must meet the definition of Harassment 

subjecting someone to aggressive pressure or intimidation.

Is every single instance of bot informing  person of an automatic ban Harassment 
No, of course not, and I think you know that. Unless you can prove every single automatic ban includes langue to aggressively pressure a user into changing thier behavior, then your premise is false. 
Now, lets look at the language quoted.

" To be unbanned respond to this message with a promise to avoid that subreddit."

Is this pressure to change behavior? Yes indeed.
Is this aggressive use of pressure/intimidation? Id say no, probably not, but if you wanted to report it to the admins maybe they would look at it. The issue is this is just one example and it's not really clearly harassment anyway. 
Unless you can show that these automatic bans are de facto harassment in of themselfs, which they appear to not be, then you must admit your argument is flawed on some level