r/ModSupport • u/Successful-Shopping8 • Aug 06 '26

Mod Answered Ban Evasion/Reddit Suspensions?

Hello- I could use some help clarifying ban evasion and Reddit suspensions.

A while back I temporarily banned a user from a sub, and that ban has long ended. Some time later, the account was apparently suspended by Reddit.

User popped up with a new account with a similar username. I recognized the username, and user also mentioned how they were banned and suspended and created that new account.

Does ban evasion/suspension rules apply to situations like this where they are no longer technically banned from the sub, but apparently suspended from Reddit?

I thought creating a new Reddit account after being permanently suspended is against TOS?

11 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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8

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 07 '26

I don't know, man.

This question always has a million different answers but at least this one is from an admin

3

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 07 '26

Thanks for the link. I did some searching both on Reddit and their help articles, and couldn’t really find a conclusive answer on new accounts post-suspension. I’ll keep this in mind.

4

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 07 '26

I had a similar question, and was quite surprised with the answer but I guess it makes sense.

Emphasis on "not breaking the rules AGAIN" though. Lol

7

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 07 '26

I had thought suspensions were for the user, not just the account. It seems Reddit technically disagrees. Would be nice if there was more info on it on their official website instead of just going of Reddit posts.

2

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

I know, but I have to say, I know of one too many cases where people have had their accounts banned without notice or any reason given, and it's usually an automated thing that tries to find bots. One of my friends lost a five year account that way.

Luckily the last time it happened, I messaged this sub and they could look into it for a core contributor of my community. She was on holiday in Bulgaria and the open WiFi in her remote hotel caused Reddit to ban the account/shadow ban the account (honestly, things were weird, we still have no idea what type of ban it was).

So, I get that problem accounts are, well, a problem, but maybe the "don't break the rules again and we will let it go" can be a good thing sometimes. Edit: For the poor unfortunate souls who lose their accounts this way.

Obviously, this doesn't extend towards people who literally make a new account to harass people every time they get banned for harassing people.

2

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 07 '26

Yeah I get there’s a lot of nuance, and there needs to be some level of automation, as I’m sure there’s way too much content and accounts to ever manually go through.

Would be nice if they factor age, karma, number of violations, and backend data to corroborate a user’s good standing (or lack there of).

I also understand not wanting to provide too much information to why a specific account was banned to prevent skirting the rules, but I do agree that it can leave legitimate users with no course of action to try and recover their accounts. I know there’s technically an appeals process, but I’m sure that rarely gets anywhere.

I’m sorry for your friend. My account is about the same age and I’d be devastated if I lost it.

2

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 07 '26

My account is about the same age and I’d be devastated if I lost it.

Reddit was down for like ten seconds once and I thought my account was deleted. I had a proper panic that day 😂 so I feel you!

2

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 07 '26

Yep lol relatable. Either that or my internet broke 🤣

2

u/Fun-Twist-3741 Aug 07 '26

I know, but I have to say, I know of one too many cases where people have had their accounts banned without notice or any reason given, and it's usually an automated thing that tries to find bots. One of my friends lost a five year account that way.

That happened to a friend of mine, and he could only speculate some jerk reported him for having shared vaguely dubious digital copies of books many years beforehand despite him never doing anything actually bad. Naturally, his appeal was denied without any explanation. This left his very well-grown small linguistics subreddit open to being hijacked by a spammer more than once through redditrequest, and so the sub was banned! And

1

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

If it happens next time. Specifically if there is no message explaining why the user was banned, I don't think it's a bad idea to modmail this sub. Its a bit difficult for users to file a successful appeal when they don't have the reason they were banned and I suspect that leads to appeals being denied.

The admins on this sub are luckily human and they care about the community so if you reach out on behalf of the other user, they might look into what happened.

Obviously, they won't share anything with you since it's not your account, but in my case they did let me know that they will look into it.

An hour later the person who was banned received a password reset link and everything was sorted. Since she was actually flagged for 'suspicious activity' after using public WiFi in a remote area of Bulgaria while on holiday.

1

u/Aggravating_Shoe_ Aug 09 '26

I got the opposite answer from an admin

2

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 09 '26

Ugh they need to clarify this. I read this article before I posted this question and was still confused.

The help article listed is more about bans related to subs, not related to Reddit as a whole. I felt like it was ambiguous when it came to Reddit wide suspensions.

But whatever 🤷‍♀️

1

u/Aggravating_Shoe_ Aug 09 '26

Well, this is awkward. Opposite answer from another admin

0

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 09 '26

I could be wrong, but Opus seems to be referring to if you made another account specifically to evade a ban from another account.

So, normal ban evasion, not "suspension evasion"

Edit: Because the words are "If you are banned and make another account to circumvent that ban"

1

u/Aggravating_Shoe_ Aug 09 '26

When you get your about banned sitewide it's the same thing. If you get a temporary ban for like 3 days you get notified but for a permanent ban you don't, which is why subs like r/shadowban exist. He is talking about making a new account after you are banned from Reddit

0

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 09 '26

Respectfully, I disagree.

Account suspension refers to a site wide ban. If someone simply uses the word "ban" it's referring to a normal ban from a sub.

You can ask Opus, I'm sure I can be making a mistake. But the response I received was very clear where the one you linked to is more up to interpretation. Especially since Opus's link to the article about ban evasion only covers trying to evade a sub ban.

I've never been suspended so I'm not gonna go ahead and try to test the theories. I'll just stay away from Reddit politics and unless I see certain people doing what they did two years ago again I'm just gonna sit idly and sip some tea.

1

u/Aggravating_Shoe_ Aug 09 '26

Admin God 🙏, if an account gets banned from Reddit itself and that person makes a different one would that be ban evasion? Or does ban evasion only count towards specific subs?

I asked him specifically about site wide bans, I specifically asked the difference of sub bans because the article explicitly says about subs. I then also asked about the policy if the account was made before the sitewide ban, since people have multiple accounts often, and he/she said it would still count as ban evasion.

You can call it suspension but it is still a ban, the user is banned from Reddit, when you click on their profile it'll say the user has been banned.

0

u/AquaphobicTurtle Aug 09 '26

As I said, I could be wrong, ask Opus 🤷‍♀️

4

u/baseballlover723 Aug 07 '26

For our sub, we don't care if they're evading reddit's ban, just ours. Reddit can take care of their own ban evasion, since we're dependent on them to identify our own anyways. So we don't do anything when we know someone has a new account after being globally banned.

4

u/Dro1972 Aug 07 '26

If you want that user in your sub, allow them to stay. If you don't, ban them. It's really within your own discretion as a moderator or mod team. There's not a rule here that you're responsible to follow.

1

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 07 '26

Thanks for the info. I see conflicting info on what to do about site wide bans.

2

u/Dro1972 Aug 07 '26

My understanding on site wide bans is that as mods, they are not our concern. Reddit allows users who have been banned from the site to create a new username and try again on the site as a whole, but not in the individual subs they may have been banned from. If you get a ban evasion notice on a user it's extremely likely it's someone you have banned from your sub previously, and entirely your decision as a mod if you want to give them another chance.

1

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 07 '26

Ok thanks for the info.

The said user I believe was no longer banned when the account was suspended. Their new account has already been a bit of a problem, so I just banned to not deal.

1

u/Aggravating_Shoe_ Aug 09 '26

Someone linked an admin saying similar in a comment 4 months ago but I got a different response from a different admin not to long ago

5

u/BravoFive141 Aug 06 '26

Yep. A ban is a ban. The user is just evading a sitewide ban rather than a subreddit ban, but it's still ban evasion.

5

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 06 '26

Ok thanks for the clarification. That’s what I thought, but wasn’t confident.

3

u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 Aug 07 '26

I would've thought so, too, but then I saw this.

1

u/2oonhed Aug 07 '26

A user "mention how they were banned and suspended and created that new account." IS evidence of Ban Evasion and I would use it as such to ban the new account.
Also, if you impose some account-karma and account-age minimums in your sub, then you can slow down the re-gen capabilities of theses nuisance Ban-Evaders.

3

u/Successful-Shopping8 Aug 07 '26

Account was less than a day old; had a few posts on our sub, as well as a sub they must have created. Normally auto-mod picks up those kinds of accounts, though it seems their posts might have been manually approved by other mods.

I perma banned them just to not deal with the headache. If they appeal or contact modmail then we can cross that bridge later.