Could VPN usage trigger Reddit bots?
I’m not appealing the ban here — I’m just trying to understand what I should avoid doing in the future.
My account was shadowbanned around 3 years ago.
At that time it was already an old and active account with decent karma. I had never been banned or even warned for breaking any rules, so the shadowban came completely out of nowhere.
I sent multiple messages to Reddit support back then but never received a single response. Every new account I created after that also ended up getting banned pretty quickly, so eventually I gave up and just kept using Reddit for browsing only.
Yesterday I suddenly received a message asking me to reset my password, so I did. And today, somehow, my profile started working again as if the shadowban had been removed.
So now my question is: what should I do to avoid getting banned again in a few days? I still have no idea what caused it in the first place.
The only thing I can think of is VPN usage. Can Reddit’s automated systems shadowban accounts because of VPNs?
The thing is, without a VPN I can’t fully access Reddit and some other services in my country, so my VPN is basically always enabled on all devices. It’s a paid VPN, not a free/public one.
Could that really be the reason?