Reddit Bans r/DarkNetMarkets, Its Biggest Dark-Web Drug-Market Hub

r/DarkNetMarkets was for years the largest clearnet (open-web) discussion hub for Tor-based dark-net marketplaces, serving as a forum where users reviewed vendors, compared markets such as Silk Road's successors and Dream Market, traded warnings about scammers and exit scams, and tracked market outages and law-enforcement takedowns. Reporting at the time of the ban put the community at roughly 160,000 to 180,000 subscribers, making it the most prominent above-ground node in the dark-net drug ecosystem.

On March 21, 2018, Reddit added a clause to its content policy prohibiting users from soliciting or facilitating transactions or gifts involving certain classes of goods and services — firearms, ammunition and explosives; drugs and controlled substances; paid physical sexual services; stolen goods; personal information; and falsified documents or currency. r/DarkNetMarkets was banned the same day, with Reddit's removal notice citing 'a violation of Reddit's policy against transactions involving prohibited goods or services.'

Although the subreddit's moderators had nominally barred users from arranging sales on the forum, coverage noted that discussion routinely steered toward sourcing, market addresses, product reviews and vendor solicitation, which Reddit treated as facilitation. The ban swept up a cluster of related communities at the same moment, including r/xanaxcartel, r/DNMSuperlist and r/HiddenService, and was widely read as ending the era of large-scale, openly indexed dark-net market discussion on the mainstream web.