Ghost Banning

What Does Ghost Banning Mean?

Ghost banning is a process through which a user is invisibly banned from a social network, website or online community. Ghost banning enables an administrator to ban a user while still providing that user with the ability to browse through and use the available features, while still preventing the user from interfering with other users.

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Techopedia Explains Ghost Banning

Ghost banning first emerged in large social networks. It was implemented to identify, monitor and eliminate spammers and restrict their activities. For example, a ghost banned user can access the social network, review updates from his or her connections, etc., but none of that user's activity, such as content or link sharing, is visible to connections or even general subscribers. This enables the website administrator to segregate spammers from the lot and to put suspicious users under scrutiny until their activities are on par with the terms and conditions of the site in question.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…