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Re:Ask HN: Reddit account banned almost one year ago – unabl... by prof_hibschman on Tuesday April 15, 2025 @11:09AM (#43693908)
I worked on a similar large social platform with shadow-bans and more strict auto-bans, we had <10% of accounts with "uncommon" usage patterns from paid-user farms, bots, and power-users. The platform prefers a user who sees ads, has rich tracking data, stays logged in, has clean analytics, has persistent caches. Their view is that if you're technical enough to trigger a bot-ban, you're technical enough overcome a ban and make a new account, after all there are 900 million other "normal"ish users with higher ARPU.

To avoid auto-bans, emulate the preferred "dumb" user:

- Use the default app

- Avoid VPN/Proxy (AWS-hosted VPN exits are blocked on Reddit, appeals ignored)

- Avoid analytics-blockers in adblock/pi-hole/dns

- Avoid chrome plugins that scrape (shopping, reviews, media downloaders)

- Limit incognito usage, keep your new-login count low

- Limit deleting / cache-clearing mobile app

- Limit new logins on many devices/browsers/profiles on the same IP

- Limit cmd+clicking 10+ posts in the background (triggers bot-like flag)

- Start new accounts slowly, don't over-do it the first month

To avoid report-bans / moderator-bans / strikes:

- Avoid posting screenshots / URL embeds unless common for the subreddit

- Always add flare (tags) to new posts, many subs auto-mod no-flare posts

- Be careful what you say on "brand" subs like r/Comcast_Xfinity, r/unitedairlines, r/NFL. They hire "brand managers" to use reddit, and if the brand doesn't like it, they can report your posts towards a ban.

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