EDIT: @mindbleach@sh.itjust.works shared something that might help to circumvent this shit:
Contained in these parentheses is a zero-width joiner: (โ)
Basically, add those to whatever you feel that might be filtered out, then remove the parentheses. The content inside the parentheses is invisible, but it screws with regex rules.
Whenever I see someone asking about or speculating that users need somewhere else to go... I direct-message them and give them links to https://feddit.org/search and encourage them to make a login on some instance...
So far it doesn't seem reddit is snooping on direct messages ... yet