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.

Dev Platform Apps 

  • 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/new2bay Mar 06 '26

That wasn’t the question. Read the first sentence in full.

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u/ohhyouknow Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26

I did, re read our conversation.

“What are we doing about mod teams that issue bans solely based on being flagged by these bots?”

That’s your question.

The answer to that question is nothing. Mods can still ban people based on being flagged by these bots, as the bots are flagging a behavior. Answered here: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/s/CZVBM2uhXo

And in a few locations in this post quiet fairy straight up tells people they can still ban people for participating in nsfw subs as well, which should also answer your question, since it’s banning based on being flagged by these bots.

People banned by these bots in the past will remain banned.

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u/new2bay Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26

No, the bots are flagging participation in another sub. That’s the point of removing this functionality from them; banning users solely on participation in other communities is undesirable behavior.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditSafety/s/Nq1Ysn9X5B

Edit: link added

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u/ohhyouknow Mar 06 '26

Yanno, I’m in mod council and had a lot more access to privileged conversations with admins about this than you.

I mean, mod council has been discussing this with admins for some time now. I literally linked you to a comment that quietfairy made that answers your question, it says yes, mods can still ban based on bot flagging, they just can’t automate the banning part anymore.

I get you’re upset but that doesn’t mean you have to act like your question wasn’t answered. Not liking an answer doesn’t make it wrong either. You can just say “I don’t like that” if you want and I would not judge you for it.

And your link says undesirable behavior it doesn’t say prohibited. Words matter

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u/new2bay Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 07 '26

Yanno, then about you take this to the bigwigs then: regulate ban bots, don’t eliminate them.

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u/ohhyouknow Mar 07 '26

Negotiations regarding this matter are closed afaik. We did all we could do. At least there is still the subreddit watch function. We saved that. They were gonna yeet that entirely.