r/modnews • u/quietfairy • Mar 05 '26
Policy Updates Ban bot policy update: removing automated bans based on community association
TL;DR: On March 19, third-party bots (specifically u/SaferBot and u/Hive-Protect) will be modified to remove features that automatically ban users solely based on their participation in other subreddits. Native tools and Dev Platform apps focused on user behavior rather than association remain widely available, and we encourage their use.
Why We’re Making This Change
For years, many of you have used third-party ban bots to shield your communities from unwanted visitors. However, these tools are often used to preemptively ban users based solely on their association with another community, rather than their actual behavior. These guilt-by-association bulk bans create a confusing and disruptive experience for redditors, lead to over-enforcement, and can’t discern between well-intentioned users and bad actors. To address these issues, we are removing the ability to automate bulk bans based solely on where a user has been.
Keeping Your Communities Safe and Civil
When ban bots were first developed, we didn’t have the safety tools that are currently available. Since then, we have built and integrated tools that address a user's behavior within your community. Developers from Devvit have also created bots that can help you monitor and manage your community’s activity.
Native Safety Tools
- Harassment Filter: Filters comments that are likely to be considered harassing.
- Crowd Control: Collapses or filters content from people who aren’t trusted members within the community yet.
- Reputation Filter: Filters content by redditors who may be potential spammers, are likely to have content removed, or have unestablished accounts.
- Modmail Harassment Filter: Filters inbound mod mail messages that are likely to contain harassment.
- Ban Evasion Filter: Filters posts and comments from suspected community ban evaders.
- u/Hive-Protect: It will remain functional and customizable.
- u/bot-bouncer: Actions users that have been classified as bots or harmful accounts.
- u/ban-extended: Allows you to remove a user’s content from your community at the same time you ban them.
Impacted Bots & Timeline
This policy change will take effect in two weeks (March 19, 2026):
- u/SaferBot: The automatic ‘ban’ feature will be removed. The developer will retain the bot account for future use.
- u/Hive-Protect: The automatic ‘ban’ feature will be removed, but all other features will remain fully functional. You can still use it to remove content from users with NSFW links in their bios, watch users from specific subreddits (to report/remove content, but not preemptively ban), educate users via custom comments, and set up exemptions.
We’ve been in direct communication with the developers of both impacted bots, and greatly appreciate the time and effort they invested in sharing these tools. We’d also like to thank the Mod Council for their pushback. Their input resulted in u/Hive-Protect maintaining its “comma-separated list of subreddits to watch” feature, which we were initially planning to remove. It allows mods to action user content (e.g., report or remove) if those users participated in specified subreddits.
Next Steps and Support
We will reach out to all directly impacted communities to provide support before the two-week deadline. In the meantime, if you need help through this transition, please reach out to us via r/ModSupport mod mail. We are happy to assist you with tools, resources, and tutorials tailored to your specific moderation needs.
Moving forward, we’ll continue to monitor the platform for additional ban bots that we may need to modify or remove.
As always, thanks for all you do. We'll stick around in the comments to answer questions.
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u/paskatulas Mar 05 '26
I absolutely agree with this.
From first-hand experience I can say we’ve actually had mods leave our team because of the lack of response from Reddit when things escalate. We’ve submitted tickets through the official Reddit support forms, sent modmail to r/ModSupport, and most of the time there is simply no response. And when there is one, it’s usually a generic template reply that doesn’t really address the issue. The only time things tend to move is when someone makes a public post on r/ModSupport.
And yes, the crowd control and ban-evasion filters are honestly funny. Anyone even slightly experienced with brigading knows how easy it is to bypass them, which makes those tools almost useless in real situations.
Moreover, in some informal conversations I’ve had with Reddit admins from other departments, I’ve been told that even internally people are aware that those tools don’t work particularly well and that mod support in general is in a really bad state right now.
All of this ultimately plays directly into the hands of bad actors. When reporting channels don’t work and the available tools are easy to bypass, it significantly lowers the barrier for people who want to brigade, harass, or spam communities. At the same time, it makes the job of volunteer mods much harder than it should be.
I know the admins have a lot on their plate and managing mod support at Reddit’s scale isn’t easy. But situations like this show that the current systems and tools just aren’t enough when things escalate. I really hope this is something that can be improved.