I am not advocating for ban evasion.
Reddit has implemented a powerful ban evasion filter that catches ban evaders who use alternate accounts to post on a subreddit they were banned from. Though, the same cannot be said for sitewide suspensions. While simply using a fingerprinting-blocking browser that deletes cookies every time you close the browser, you can circumvent a sitewide suspension, but evading a subreddit ban seems impossible.
So why does Reddit prevent circumventing a subreddit ban while they are okay with sitewide suspension evasions? Don’t get me wrong, I respect Reddit for not being too punishing to its users, but it still feels weird that they gave moderators so much power while administrators don’t use it at all. Mind explaining their choices?
Again, I am not advocating for ban evasion, and please do not circumvent a ban.
You must log in or # to comment.
I respect Reddit
That’s not something you hear very often lately.
Assuming you’re using the website rather than the app, it’s fairly easy to change your IP, browser, email address and username - if they still know it’s you after all that then they’re doing something pretty clever…
But I don’t get it. If Reddit admins implemented new ban evasion filters, then how can we still circumvent sitewide suspensions while subreddit bans are impossible to evade? I hope that it stays that way.
I’m saying I don’t think they can really detect when you’re circumventing subreddit bans if you do all of the above.
I also think their “site wide ban” is just suspending that user, they don’t attempt to prevent you from coming back unless you start to hassle the same people/subreddits again.
(This is based on experience of reporting scammers on Reddit and getting upwards of a couple of hundred users banned)
A lot of this comes down to if you’re using a Reddit, Inc app, evidently it gathers so much data about the device it’s on even if you login with a new acc those details are sent and stored so you can be tracked that way as soon as you make a post on the sub your previous acc was banned.
The other way which is also easy is via IP address, combine the Reddit app data collected and IP and probably very very easy. One other way would be delete the previous acc and create a new acc, however all that data about your device and IP are probably still stored somewhere.
If you’re using a laptop/desktop browser there is still unique identifiers that could be used unless you’re using browser extensions which modify your cookies and stuff.
OP it’s not difficult at all, you’re just doing it wrong. Keep the fingerprint blocking browser but put it on a proxy or VPN network to remove IP address associations, or to just use Tor.
Tor is simpler and has redundancies and features that make tracking incredibly difficult, not impossible (don’t use it to commit crimes) but essentially impossible for someone like Reddit. Funnily enough they actually indirectly endorse this since they actually have their own onion site, which is hilarious but also convenient.
As for why they do it that way, I’m not really sure. The idea of “ban evasion” policies seems pretty laughable in my opinion more like they’re asking nicely not to do it. It’s even more laughable since they handed the bypass tools to us on a silver platter by allowing us to access Reddit without even touching an exit node via their onion site. It’s really strange of them.
