How to Get Content About You Removed From Reddit
Reddit will remove content about you if it breaks one of its sitewide rules. The rule that matters most here is Rule 3: respect the privacy of others, which bans posting someone's personal or confidential information and posting intimate media without consent. Report it from the post or comment itself, or use reddit.com/report.
If the content is just critical, embarrassing, or unfair, Reddit usually leaves it up. For those posts, a subreddit's moderators, the original poster, or search engine cleanup are usually more realistic routes than a Reddit report. Here's how each one works.
First, figure out which bucket the content is in
Everything below depends on sorting correctly. Reddit content about you usually falls into one of four groups:
- Personal information: your home address, phone number, private email, financial details, or links that let people find you. Reddit removes this.
- Intimate or sexual images shared without consent. Reddit removes this, and federal law now requires fast removal (see below).
- Harassment: posts or comment campaigns aimed at you. Often removable, depending on the specifics.
- Opinions, reviews, complaints, or accusations: usually not removable by Reddit. The routes are the subreddit, the poster, or suppression.
What Reddit counts as personal information
Reddit's help article on posting private or personal information is stricter than many people expect. Beyond addresses and phone numbers, it says the rule includes links to public Facebook pages and screenshots of Facebook pages where names are still readable. Reddit says posting someone's personal information will get the poster banned.
The main exception is public figures. Reddit allows things like professional contact links for an elected official or a company CEO, but still prohibits inviting harassment.
How to report it
Reporting from the exact post or comment gives the most context. Open the post or comment, tap the three-dot menu, choose Report, and pick the reason that fits best, usually the one about personal or private information, or harassment. For personal information, Reddit's help center also points to reddit.com/report.
Report each piece of content on its own. If the same information shows up in ten comments, file ten reports or include all ten links.
With a Reddit account
Without a Reddit account: Reddit has a request form for reporting sitewide rule violations without logging in. Reddit asks you to include links to the specific posts, comments, or profile. Its help page says it doesn't accept screenshots as evidence because they're too easy to manipulate, so copy the permalink for every item.
To get a permalink, open the comment and use Share > Copy link. Paste each one into the report.
Try the subreddit's moderators
Every subreddit is run by volunteer moderators who enforce their own rules on top of Reddit's. Many communities have rules against personal attacks, naming private individuals, or off-topic drama, and moderators can remove a post that Reddit's admins wouldn't.
To reach them, go to the subreddit, find the moderator list in the sidebar or the community info section, and use the option to message the mods. A good modmail:
Don't message the moderators of a subreddit that exists to criticize you or your business. It rarely helps and can draw more attention.
- Links to the exact post or comment.
- Names the specific subreddit rule it breaks. Read the rules first and quote one.
- Stays calm and short. Moderators are volunteers dealing with a lot of messages.
- Doesn't threaten legal action unless you actually have a lawyer involved. It tends to shut the conversation down.
Ask the person who posted it
Only the author can delete their own post outright, and some will if asked. This works best with someone you know, or with a customer whose complaint you've actually fixed. It works badly with anonymous accounts that are posting to harass you, and a message can turn a quiet thread into a new one about you contacting them. Use judgment.
One detail from Reddit's own help center: when an account is deleted, its posts and comments stay on Reddit, just without the username attached. If the poster tells you they "deleted their account," check whether the content itself is actually gone.
Intimate images: faster, legally backed removal
If someone posted intimate images of you without consent, whether real or AI-generated, report them to Reddit right away. Under the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, covered platforms must remove these images, and known identical copies, within 48 hours of a valid request. The FTC's guidance explains the law, and the FTC accepts complaints about platforms that don't comply. Adults can also use StopNCII.org to help block the same images on participating platforms.
What about false or defamatory posts?
This is the hardest category. In the US, Section 230 generally protects platforms like Reddit from liability for what users post, so Reddit isn't usually required to remove a post just because you say it's false. Claims based on defamation are normally brought against the person who wrote the post, which is hard when the account is anonymous. Some people go to court over serious cases, but that's a decision to make with a lawyer. This article isn't legal advice.
When the post stays up: work on search results
Reddit threads often rank well on Google, which is usually the real problem. A post seen by a few hundred Redditors matters less than a post that shows up when an employer or client searches your name.
If Reddit or the moderators remove the content, Google may keep showing the old snippet until it re-crawls the page. You can ask Google to refresh an outdated result. If the thread contains your personal contact details, Google also has a separate removal policy for that. Our guide to removing results from Google covers both.
If the thread is staying up and isn't removable, the realistic goal is to push it further down in search results. That means building accurate, strong pages for your name that outrank it. It takes time, and nobody can honestly promise a specific result.
When outside help makes sense
Handling a single post with personal information is usually quick with Reddit's own tools. Outside help may be worth it when content is spread across several threads and subreddits, when it's reposted after removal, or when a Reddit thread has become one of the top results for your name. Our link removal page explains what a professional can and can't do in those cases.
Want this handled for you? See our negative content removal service.
