You ban someone from your community. Problem solved, right?

Wrong 'Em, Boyo.

Reddit moderators catch only 10% of ban evaders. The other 90% are back in your community before you close the mod queue.

Cornell research found that successful ban evaders aren't sloppy trolls. They use fewer inappropriate usernames, post less frequently, swear less, and use more objective language than other malicious users. They study what got them banned and adapt.

The ones you catch are amateurs. The pros rarely ever get flagged.

The Evader's Toolkit

Sophisticated ban evaders operate with a three-part system: fresh identity, clean technical fingerprint, and modified behavior.

Account creation starts with disposable emails and temporary phone numbers from non-VoIP SMS services. The smart ones create accounts weeks in advance, building karma through organic engagement in unrelated subreddits. This "account warming" makes detection nearly impossible.

The technical layer defeats fingerprinting. Reddit collects your OS version, screen resolution, installed fonts, WebGL data, canvas fingerprints, and hardware identifiers. Evaders counter with antidetect browsers like Multilogin and GoLogin that spoof every signal. These tools create isolated browser profiles with unique fingerprints and route traffic through residential proxies that appear identical to legitimate home connections.

The behavioral layer is where evaders really excel. They change posting frequency, vary their timing, shift to different subreddits, and consciously modify their writing style. Research shows that stylometry can identify people from 5,000-word samples with 80% accuracy. Successful evaders know this and deliberately alter their vocabulary, sentence length, and tone.

The Human Cost

Heavy Reddit moderators report spending 30-40 hours weekly on unpaid moderation work. One moderator bans 330 spam accounts every single week. That's unpaid labor valued at $3.4 million annually. Heavy moderators report 30-40 hours weekly. One moderator reported banning 330 spam accounts every single week.

The psychological toll is severe. A 2024 study found over 34.6% of content moderators scored moderate-to-severe on psychological distress measures. An Engadget investigation found that 100% of interviewed moderators had received death threats.

This is why volunteer moderators burn out. More bans, more accounts, and the same problems persist. Every ban becomes a temporary fix to a permanent problem.

Why Current Tools Fail

Reddit launched its Ban Evasion Filter in August 2022. It uses multi-signal detection across IP addresses, device fingerprinting, and connection patterns. Moderators can set confidence thresholds and timeframes. It's the most sophisticated tool Reddit has ever deployed.

It still misses 90% of evaders.

The fundamental problem is structural. Account creation is free, takes two minutes, and requires no meaningful verification. Detection requires ongoing human labor and imperfect tools that only catch evaders after they've already caused harm.

IP bans don't work because VPNs are ubiquitous and residential proxies appear identical to legitimate users. AutoModerator can't detect ban evasion, only filter by account age and karma. Third-party tools like BotDefense shut down entirely after Reddit's 2023 API pricing changes.

The cost asymmetry is insurmountable. Evading is cheap and fast. Detecting is expensive and slow.

A Different Approach

The only way out is to stop playing the ban-and-return game entirely.

Instead of asking "How do we find the bots?" or "How do we catch the evaders?", we should ask a different question: "How do we verify the humans and foster accountability?"

When account creation requires actual verification of humanness, the economics flip. Evaders can't spin up unlimited fresh identities. Communities can enforce meaningful consequences. Moderators can focus on building instead of constantly defending.

The tools exist. The question is whether platforms will implement them.