Vote manipulation
Also called: vote cheating, buying upvotes, upvote manipulation, vote brigading
Definition
Vote manipulation is any attempt to change Reddit vote counts artificially: voting from multiple accounts, buying votes, using bots, or coordinating a group to vote on specific content. It breaks Reddit Rule 2 and is a listed reason for automated permanent bans.
Votes decide what Reddit shows. They rank posts in feeds and comments in threads, and they produce karma. That makes them a target, and Reddit treats tampering with them as one of its more serious offenses.
What counts
Reddit's Disrupting Communities policy lists "vote cheating or manipulation, whether manual, programmatic, or otherwise," including:
- Creating and using multiple accounts, voting services, or automation to push vote counts up or down.
- Coordinated voting with an organized group of people or bots against a specific post, a user's posts, or content from a domain.
- Automated means to manipulate karma.
Reddit's help page on multiple accounts adds a plain line: "Don't use any of your accounts to vote on the same posts or comments." Even two accounts owned by one person, voting on the same comment, counts.
Reddiquette, the community's informal etiquette, also asks users not to hint at asking for votes or send messages asking people to vote for a submission.
Why it gets accounts banned
Reddit's transparency report lists "persistent vote manipulation" as one of the reasons for automated permanent bans. Reddit also uses reports from moderators and users plus internal signals to decide whether behavior violates the policy. Suspected vote manipulation can be reported through Reddit's webform.
Vote manipulation also tends to be the thing that links accounts together. A cluster of accounts that always upvote the same brand's comments is a pattern, and when Reddit acts on a pattern it can act on every account in it.
Why it matters for marketers
The temptation is obvious: a helpful comment that sits at 1 point under a top comment at 300 gets read by almost nobody. Teams ask colleagues to upvote, or buy a package of upvotes. Both are vote manipulation. The second also usually means routing your brand through a network of accounts Reddit is actively looking for, which can pull your own account into that network's enforcement.
There is no legitimate way to buy votes on Reddit. The honest options are slower: reply early, answer the specific question, and make the reply genuinely the most useful one in the thread. Reddit also adds vote fuzzing to displayed counts, so small numbers on a scoreboard are not worth gaming anyway.
Example
A startup posts its launch in a relevant subreddit and drops the link in the company Slack with "upvote this!" Twenty employees, many of whom never use the subreddit, upvote within minutes. That is coordinated voting with an organized group targeting a specific post, the exact example in Reddit's policy, even though nobody bought anything.
Frequently asked questions
Is asking friends to upvote my Reddit post against the rules?
Yes, if it is organized. Reddit's policy covers coordinated voting by an organized group of people targeting a specific post, and Reddiquette asks users not to solicit votes.
Can I upvote my own posts with my alt account?
No. Reddit allows multiple accounts but says not to use any of them to vote on the same posts or comments. Doing so is vote manipulation.
What happens if you get caught manipulating votes on Reddit?
Penalties range from warnings to permanent bans. Reddit lists persistent vote manipulation among the reasons for automated permanent bans.