The Great Ban

"The Great Ban" is the name researchers and the community use for Reddit's large-scale deplatforming action of late June 2020, in which the platform updated its Content Policy to explicitly prohibit hate and then banned roughly 2,000 communities for repeatedly violating the new rules. The most prominent removed community was r/The_Donald, alongside others spanning hateful, harassing, and extremist content. It was among the most sweeping single enforcement events in Reddit's history and became a widely studied natural experiment in the effectiveness and side effects of mass content moderation.

The term also evokes Reddit's earlier 2015 wave of bans under then-CEO Ellen Pao, when several harassing subreddits including r/fatpeoplehate were removed, triggering intense backlash and contributing to her resignation. Academic analysis of the 2020 operation, such as the arXiv study "The Great Ban," found mixed outcomes: a meaningful share of affected users left Reddit and many who stayed reduced their toxicity on average, yet a minority became more toxic, and some behavior migrated to other platforms. These findings are frequently cited in debates over whether deplatforming meaningfully curbs online harm or merely displaces it, making the event a touchstone in discussions of platform governance.