Data study
Why was my Reddit post removed? What the data says about who removes posts
How often are posts on Reddit removed, and who removes them? Posts and authors that have been removed more than is typical for a subreddit, October 2025 – September 2026.
By Dmytro Krutytskyi, KissMyPost ResearchPublished Data through September 20269 min read
In the period October 2025 – September 2026, of the 461,495,971 posts counted on Reddit, roughly 16.5% were removed. Of those removals, roughly half (51.4%) were done by filters on the platform, rather than moderators of the subreddit or AutoModerator.
Check your own subreddit
See when your subreddit is most active, what gets posts removed and who writes there.
Why was my Reddit post removed?
You submitted a post to Reddit, but it disappears shortly after, or you can’t see it from anyone else’s perspective. When you search “why was my reddit post removed” the results are mostly advice, so I wanted to count things instead.
So I counted. I took every post in the data from October 2025 to September 2026, which came to 461,495,971 once I left out bots, moderators' own posts, profile posts and posts their authors deleted. Then I asked the data three questions. How many posts get removed? Who removes them? And which posts get removed more often than is usual for the same subreddit?
There’s a caveat up front: this data is meant to show how often posts of a certain type were removed, not why your specific post came down (the reason isn’t recorded), nor how quickly after submission it was removed.
Overall, 16.5% of posts were removed at some point during the year, or about one in six. There’s not much difference from month-to-month and no clear trend can be inferred.
Who removes Reddit posts: moderators, AutoModerator or Reddit?
In terms of who removes Reddit posts, it looks like about half of removals happen by Reddit’s filters, with most of the remainder removed by moderators and AutoModerator.
Every removed post is tagged by the remover, either “outright” removals by subreddit moderators or AutoModerator (labeled together), or “held-back” posts that were removed by AutoModerator or subreddit filters, but still unapproved when captured (labeled together), or Reddit-wide platform filters.
Source: KissMyPost analysis of public Reddit posts. 76,324,912 removed posts of 461,495,971. Known bots, moderators' own posts, profile posts and self-deleted posts left out.
Reddit’s own filters account for the biggest single group, about half of all removals. Moderators and AutoModerator make up about a third, and posts that were held but never approved make up about one-sixth.
Reddit filters are responsible for a far larger percentage of adult removals than they are of other types. Without adult posts in the dataset, the “only about half” number is slightly under half.
It’s possible that when a post is removed and you’re a reader, you might suspect that AutoModerator was the culprit. But the data can’t entirely settle that question. AutoModerator is a tool built into Reddit where moderators can set rules that are automatically applied to posts in their subreddit, according to Reddit’s own AutoModerator page.
In the data, outright removal by AutoModerator is filed under the same label as removal by a moderator, so the two appear identically in the data.
Screenshot of reddit.com, captured Nov 14, 2026
Screenshot of reddit.com, captured Nov 14, 2026
What does removed by Reddit filters mean?
This is removal by Reddit’s filters. It’s about one in twelve, across the year’s entire post volume.
The data is silent on whether any subreddit setting was a contributing factor.
Screenshot of reddit.com, captured Nov 14, 2026
Screenshot of reddit.com, captured Nov 14, 2026
Which posts get removed more often?
Another factor that seems to have an effect is posts from accounts created since December 2024. These posts are removed at a higher rate than other posts within the same subreddit.
The raw removal rates are a bit misleading here because newcomers and regulars tend to use the site differently. Among authors with no comments in that subreddit, subreddits remove about one in five of their posts. Among authors with twenty or more comments in that subreddit, subreddits remove about one in eight.
Each post is benchmarked against two factors: how often posts in that subreddit are removed, and how often posts by that type of author are removed. A score of 1 means that the post was removed at just the rate typical for that subreddit or author type.
The clearest pattern is whether the author had previously participated in that subreddit. For each post, the number of still-visible comments by that author in the same subreddit during the previous year was counted. I compared how often posts in each group were removed with the typical rate for posts in those same subreddits.
Source: KissMyPost analysis of public Reddit posts. 0.2% sample, 923,591 posts in 111,328 subreddits, 922,428 with a known author. Hollow dots: the share of all posts the same subreddits removed, leaving the post itself out. Known bots, moderators' own posts, profile posts and self-deleted posts left out.
Those who had no visible comment history in that subreddit over the prior year, about a quarter of their posts were removed. Those who had twenty or more comments there, fewer than one in twenty of their posts were removed.
The first group is large, about half of the posts in this sample were written by authors with no comments in that subreddit.
In this same dataset, looking only at posts within the same subreddit and the same account-age bracket, the rate of removal for posts by authors who hadn’t left any comments in that subreddit in the last year was 2.8× the rate for posts by authors who’d commented at least once there. The 95% interval on that estimate was from 2.70 to 2.86.
This is correlation only, not causation; there’s no guarantee that commenting early will protect your post. It could be that non-commenters in a subreddit are different in some way that isn’t visible here, like having less karma. Also note that comments can be filter-removed at the instant they’re posted, and the author disappears from the data. So such comments would be uncountable here.
First posts are also removed more often. Over four in five of them come from authors who have no visible comments in the subreddit.
Try itHow often posts get removed in a subreddit you pick, and who removes them: Subreddits
Account age is correlated with removals, but there’s only a rough split. Creation is known only relative to December 20, 2024, so the exact age of accounts created earlier than that is not known.
If you compare accounts that are in the same subreddit and have the same comment history, but split by whether they were made on or after December 20, 2024, then the removal rate for newer accounts is 1.60× higher than for older accounts, with a 95% interval from 1.56 to 1.63.
Source: KissMyPost analysis of public Reddit posts. 0.2% sample, 923,591 posts in 111,328 subreddits, 922,428 with a known author. Comparison inside each subreddit, pooled across subreddits. Known bots, moderators' own posts, profile posts and self-deleted posts left out.
If I count only instances where a moderator removed a post or where Reddit held up a post for review, the gap shrinks to 1.38×. But the no-comments gap is little changed, at 2.7×.
Next I looked at the removal rates for each type of post, relative to the typical removal rate across those same subreddits.
Source: KissMyPost analysis of public Reddit posts. 0.2% sample, 923,591 posts in 111,328 subreddits, 922,428 with a known author. Hollow dots: the share of all posts the same subreddits removed. Posts of unknown type left out. Known bots, moderators' own posts, profile posts and self-deleted posts left out.
Relative to the own-subreddit baseline, text posts were removed at a slightly higher rate than usual, and images removed at a roughly equal rate. Videos, galleries, crossposts, and redgifs posts were all removed at a lower rate than usual.
There are two patterns I was expecting to see that I don’t see here:
Same title reposted to three or more further communities in one day, and there’s no clear tie to the extra removals there.
Users who posted five or more posts in the previous day are no more likely to have their posts removed than other users.
Found while analysing
One finding wasn’t part of my original plan; links were originally grouped together with redgifs posts and posts where the type of content couldn’t be determined. Separating them out, these are posts that link to other websites. They’re removed at only slightly above the usual rate in the same subreddit, 1.11× (95% interval 1.07 to 1.15).
This gap persisted across all variations of the analysis, and it was still quite small. Since this wasn’t tested as a planned question, it’s worth checking again later.
In terms of the overall analysis, about half of all removals are accompanied by Reddit’s own filter label. This is a statement about the proportion of removals, rather than the odds that any one post will be removed. In terms of the last question, the group that had the most removed during the preceding year had no comments visible in that community at all. But while commenting first isn’t a guarantee against removal, it does show where the data clusters.
If there’s another removal question you’d like me to look into next, let me know!
Method
| Step | What |
|---|---|
| Data | I counted posts from October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026 (UTC), a total of 461,495,971 posts, after excluding certain types of posts. I dropped posts made by moderators, user profiles, and 8,349,295 posts that were deleted by the author. I also removed 70,276 known bot accounts and their 34,967,299 posts (5.06% of them removed). Had I not removed these bots, I would have gotten a share removed of 15.7%. |
| Removal label | A removal label defines whether a post was removed: either it was removed by moderators or AutoModerator (32.5% of removals), or held by AutoModerator or a subreddit filter and not approved (15.6%), or other takedown (0.55%). The rest were removed by Reddit’s own filters (51.4% of removals, 8.50% of all posts). Note that this label shows the state of the post when I captured it, not when it was taken down, and since Reddit does not document its labels, the grouping of these values is my own reading of them. The monthly share removed fluctuated little over the year, staying between 16.0% and 17.0%. |
| Sample | The author and other post attributes come from a fixed sample of posts, about 0.2% of all posts in the dataset. This includes 923,591 posts in 111,328 subreddits; 922,428 of those posts had a writer identified. Comment history includes visible comments written by the author within that subreddit in the last year. Account age is split at December 20, 2024, since new accounts start numbering after that date. |
| Benchmark | Each post is benchmarked against its own subreddit. For single traits, this is a ratio: the share of posts removed for that trait, divided by the subreddit’s overall share removed, excluding the post itself from both calculations. The main comparisons pit two groups against each other inside every subreddit and account-age band, then pool those subreddits together, using a Mantel-Haenszel procedure. Intervals were bootstrapped over subreddits and authors. |
| Comment history | Posts by authors with no visible comments in the subreddit were removed at 25.3%, and posts by those with twenty or more comments were removed at 4.50%. In those subreddits, the usual rates were 19.2% and 12.5%. Among removed posts, Reddit’s filters made 52.6% of removals in the first group and 37.6% in the second. |
| Account age | Among removed posts from authors with no comments in the subreddit, Reddit’s filters made 59.8% of removals for new accounts, against 39.5% for older accounts. Across their comment history, the ratio of new to older accounts was 1.66× for authors with no comments, and 1.14× for those with twenty or more comments. |
| Title and posting rate | Same title in at least three other subreddits within a day: 0.93× of the usual rate. At least five posts in the day before: 0.92×. |
| Other ways of counting | The two main comparisons, no comments and new versus older accounts, were rerun without the largest subreddit. They were also repeated for each half of the year, and again with adult posts excluded, and the direction was consistent every time. The share of removals made by Reddit’s filters is the exception, since it is lower when adult posts are excluded, which is why I say about half. The removed share and the share removed by Reddit’s filters count every post rather than a sample, so there’s no sampling interval. |
Planned before looking, and found while analysing
| Item | What |
|---|---|
| Predictions | Predictions were fixed before seeing the results. The only exceptions are peeks at a count of removals in business subreddits and an earlier count by remover for part of this period, neither of which was used as a result. |
| Reddit’s filters | Predicted: Reddit’s filters remove at least as many posts as moderators and held posts together. Held for the whole year, but not without adult posts, so I only say “about half”. |
| No comments | Predicted: posts from people with no comments in the subreddit are removed at least twice as often as posts from people with twenty or more. Held. |
| Links and text | Predicted: links to other sites are removed above the usual rate and text posts at or below it. Not held, since text posts were a little above the usual rate too. |
| Same title | Predicted: the same title in three or more other subreddits goes with removal. Not held. |
| Five posts a day | Predicted: five or more posts in a day goes with removal. Not held. |
| Found while analysing | The split by account age, the comparisons inside each subreddit, the comparison of new and older accounts with the same comment history, the check that matched first posts with no-comments authors, the count using only removals by moderators and held posts, who removed posts by account age and comment history, the share for a typical author, and the link finding, once links were separated from redgifs posts and posts of unknown type. |
Conflict of interest: KissMyPost makes Reddit research tools. Funding: none.
Corrections: contact me; each fix gets a dated note on this page.
What this data can't tell you
| Limit | Why |
|---|---|
| Reason and speed | The reason any single post was removed, or how fast it happened. Neither is in the data. |
| Ratio, not cause | This is a ratio, not a cause. Comparing within the same subreddit takes out where people post, but not other differences between people, and karma isn't measured here. I looked at posting limits on their own in subreddit karma requirements. |
| Who removed | Removals by moderators and instant removals by AutoModerator can't be told apart, and what sits behind a removal by Reddit's own filters isn't recorded. |
| Snapshot | The data shows each post's state at the snapshot, so later removals are invisible and posts approved later from a queue still count as removed. I couldn't check whether snapshot timing stayed the same across months. |
| Adult posts | 44.5% of posts are adult (NSFW). Without them, Reddit's own filters made 44.9% of removals, so I say about half. The no-comments and new-account patterns hold without adult posts. |
| No comments | No comments means no visible comments in that subreddit in the 365 days before the post (comment data starts October 1, 2024). A comment that a filter removed the moment it was written arrives with its author erased, so it isn't counted, and comments deleted before the snapshot are invisible. |
| Erased authors | Posts with the author erased are left out of every author trait. 89.4% of them were removed, so the no-comments pattern is probably understated. |
| Self-deleted posts | Self-deleted posts are outside the count. If they'd all been removed first, the removed share could be as high as 18.0%. |
| Sample | Author and post traits come from a 0.2% sample of posts. Ratios and their intervals account for clustering by subreddit and by author, but the shares shown with them use simple intervals that are a little too narrow. |
| Typical author | The share of posts removed and the share for a typical author (18.4%) are two different numbers, since heavy posters are removed less often. |
| Many comparisons | I checked 381 comparisons without a formal correction for multiple testing. The main findings still hold after a Bonferroni correction. The median-by-subreddit version wasn't run for the comparisons inside each subreddit. The new-account gap is widest for people with no comments and smallest for people with twenty or more; at twenty or more, it's still there, but it wouldn't survive a strict correction for the number of comparisons I ran. |
| Account age | I only have a rough split by account age: before or since December 20, 2024. Older accounts range from under a year to many years old. |
| Bots | Known bot accounts are left out, as described in the method. |
| Unknown post type | Posts of unknown post type, with no link domain recorded, are a mixed group, and I read no pattern into them. |
| Whole accounts | Whole-account actions may be part of the new-account gap. Most of its extra removals come from Reddit's own filters, which can act on a whole account. Counting only removals by moderators and held posts, the gap is smaller. |
| First posts | 85.4% of first posts come from authors with no comments visible in that subreddit. Once I matched the two groups, the first-post gap was small and didn't hold without adult posts. |
| Business subreddits | I counted removals in business subreddits separately in removed posts in business subreddits. |
Questions people ask (FAQ)
What does removed by Reddit filters mean?
The “removed by Reddit filters” tag is set by Reddit itself, not the moderators of the subreddit or AutoModerator. It’s not clear which system is responsible for the removal or what role the subreddit setting plays. Reddit filters are responsible for removing 51.4% of all removed posts in the period from October 2025 through September 2026, or 44.9% if adult posts are excluded from the calculation.
The data
| Item | What |
|---|---|
| Files | Nine CSV files come with this article: who removed posts, the monthly removed share, removals by each post and author trait against the usual rate in the same subreddits, the same by account age group, and the comparisons inside each subreddit. Shares are fractions between 0 and 1, with 95% intervals where the file has them. None of the files contain post text or usernames. |
| License | License: CC BY 4.0; credit KissMyPost, link to this page. |
- CSVWho removed the postsRemoved posts by who removed them, for the whole year: count, share of removed posts and share of all posts.
- CSVRemoved share by monthShare of posts removed, by month of posting, with the number of posts.
- CSVRemovals by comment historyShare removed and removed against the usual rate in the same subreddit, by the author's comments in that subreddit in the year before.
- CSVRemovals of first postsShare removed and removed against the usual rate, first post in the subreddit or not.
- CSVRemovals by post typeShare removed and removed against the usual rate, by post type, with the share removed by Reddit's filters.
- CSVRemovals by the same title elsewhereShare removed and removed against the usual rate, by how many other subreddits got the same title within a day.
- CSVRemovals by posts in the day beforeShare removed and removed against the usual rate, by the author's posts across Reddit in the day before.
- CSVRemovals by account age groupShare removed and removed against the usual rate for the same subreddit and account age group, by comment history and first post.
- CSVComparisons inside each subredditHow many times as often one group's posts were removed as another's, inside each subreddit and stated group, with 95% intervals.
- PNGMain chartWho removed Reddit posts, as an image.
Zenodo DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24141913
Check your own subreddit
See when your subreddit is most active, what gets posts removed and who writes there.
Related research
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About the data
KissMyPost is a Reddit analytics tool: it reads a subreddit's history (posts, comments, removals, rules) and tells you when to post, what format works and who writes there. This study uses the same data: public Reddit posts and comments back to 2005.
What KissMyPost does
About the author
Dmytro Krutytskyi is the founder of KissMyPost, a Reddit analytics tool. He studies what online communities talk about, who writes in them and how audiences overlap, and writes up what the data shows here, with the method and the numbers. Questions about the data, or need a cut we didn't publish? Write to him directly.
Cite this study
Krutytskyi, D. (2026). Why was my Reddit post removed? What the data says about who removes posts. KissMyPost Research. https://kissmypost.com/research/why-reddit-posts-get-removed
Data: Krutytskyi, D. (2026). Why Reddit posts get removed, 2025-2026 [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24141913