Bans and fake profiles: can a banned user come back?

Creating an email address takes a minute. Phone numbers and bank cards can be bought too. If your ban relies on these, a banned person can come back as often as they like.

The risk to your business is real. The same individual can re-upload content you removed. They can also contact again the people they scammed or harassed. And if your PSP finds out that a banned creator came back, it is your seriousness that is in question.

Card networks. Since 2021, Mastercard has required adult platforms to verify the identity and age of every person who uploads content. A banned user returning under a false name gets around exactly this check.

The EU Digital Services Act (DSA). A platform may suspend a user who frequently posts manifestly illegal content, after a prior warning (Article 23). It must explain each decision to the person concerned (Article 17). Platforms covered by the rules must also offer a way to challenge the decision (Article 20). Micro and small enterprises are exempt from some of these obligations.

Regulators. They increasingly ask for figures: how many accounts were banned, for what reason, and how many tried to come back. A figure that ignores returns does not mean much.

A fake profile is an account opened with someone else's identity. A stolen ID document, a photo taken of a screen, a video or a deepfake can fool a check that is too basic.

That is why a photo of an ID document is no longer enough. A liveness check confirms that a real person is in front of the camera at the moment of verification. Their face is then compared with the ID document. No check is perfect, but this one makes impersonation much harder.

A solid ban rests on three things:

• A reason written in advance in your terms of service, and applied the same way to everyone.
• An explanation sent to the person: what they are accused of, which rule they broke, how to appeal.
• A record of the decision: the date, who decided, the reason, and the content or account concerned.

A poorly reasoned ban can be challenged. A well-reasoned ban tied only to an email address can be bypassed. You need both: a clear decision and a person who is truly identified.

• Banning the email address or the username, not the person.
• Not verifying the identity of a new account that looks like a banned one.
• Banning a studio or an agency but leaving the people linked to it active. Or, the other way round, punishing a performer who was the studio's victim.
• Keeping no record of the reason, which makes the decision impossible to defend.

The core of Pleenk is a single digital identity. Every creator, co-performer, agency or affiliate is verified with a liveness check. Their identity is encrypted by Pleenk and stored in a single wallet: your platform receives proof, never the ID document.

The ban is linked to that wallet, not to the account. If the banned person tries to sign up again with a new email address or a new username, the new sign-up is blocked. All their accounts, their consents and the bank account that receives their earnings are linked to the same identity. From Pleenk, you automatically generate your report and share it with your PSP in one click.