Star Wars spoilers will get people banned from Reddit, moderators say, as users turn to private messages to ruin The Force Awakens

Some users have encouraged others to install extensions that will block any mention of the film

Reddit will ban any user that attempts to ruin Star Wars by posting spoilers.

Moderators on the site have announced that they are taking very seriously reports of people trying to spoil the film. Malevolent users have been posting details of its plot on irrelevant forums — and after being blocked from public threads are instead posting private messages to people about the film’s story.

The film is now being released across the world, meaning that various parts of the plot are making their way into the public domain. But Reddit is hoping that by introducing extreme restrictions on ruining the plot of the film, it can limit the amount of exposure that they get.

“We've banned dozens of users so far for this,” moderator TheGreatZiegfeld wrote. “I think all the mods have had it spoiled for them by now. We'll do our best to make sure you guys don't suffer the same fate.

“Good luck, guys.”

Some users are attempting to get around the ban by sending spoilers in private messages. But moderators have made clear that they will look into such cases and will ban users on the basis of those reports.

Reddit has often been criticised for taking a lax approach to banning users, preferring instead to stick to a principle of unrestricted speech. But those policies tend to be decided on a per forum basis, and Reddit’s Movies section has chosen to institute the ban itself.

A range of extensions for Chrome and other platforms exist that can allow users to block any mention of Star Wars, or other related words, while browsing the internet.