Ban Evasion

Ban evasion is the practice of circumventing a ban by continuing to participate after being removed. Most commonly it refers to a user who has been banned from a subreddit or suspended from Reddit creating or switching to an alternate account to keep posting in the same place. It can also describe a community being recreated or repurposed to reconstitute a previously banned subreddit, or a banned user asking someone else to post on their behalf. Tactics may include registering new accounts and using VPNs or proxies to disguise the original identity. Ban evasion defeats the purpose of moderation and is treated as a form of cheating.

Reddit prohibits ban evasion under its Content Policy, and sitewide suspension evasion is handled directly by administrators rather than requiring a moderator report; it can result in further sitewide suspensions. At the community level, Reddit provides a ban-evasion filter that uses signals to detect when a banned user's likely alternate account posts in a subreddit, automatically flagging or removing the content for moderator review. Because enforcement relies on linking accounts through behavioral and technical signals rather than certainty, the system aims to balance catching evaders against the risk of false matches.