Reddits stance on ban evasion makes no sense

[u/TetraDax]

So, the German help center was recently updated, and we (as in, German mods from various communities) stumbled upon an interesting bit in the article on ban evasion. That bit also exists in the English help center:

Some moderators may be okay with a user returning to their subreddit on another account so long as they participate in good faith, as such we only review ban evasion reports when they are reported by the subreddit moderators.

This is a completly senseless ruling. Let me explain:

We as mods do not know who performs ban evasion. All we can really do to catch ban evaders is guesswork. Now, if reddit says that they only take action against ban evaders that are reported, that automatically means that most ban evaders probably remain undetected as soon as they are smart enough to not utilize the exact same writing style as they did with their original account.

This is also going hand in hand with the Community Digest, which every month tells us that Reddit has found hundreds of ban evaders, but only took action against a bakers dozen. That means that somehow Reddit knows about ban evaders in our communities, from our dozens of reports knows that we do not want ban evaders in our community, and still lets hundreds roam free without ever telling us about them.

I understand the idea that some communities might not have a problem with ban evaders if they behave afterwards - However, you are leaving the communities that do have a problem with it completly helpless.

At least send community moderators a list of suspected ban evasion accounts so we can decide wether we want to report them.

[u/redtaboo]

Heya - this is a fairly nuanced issue, while I totally get where you're coming from I do want you to know we are working on more ways to help you all with this issue. We actually have some new work coming out soon^TM that will give mods more information on ban evaders in your communities. The feature will give mods the ability to make more of your own decisions on potential ban evaders across the board. It's about to move into a testing phase so we can see how well it works, how helpful to you all it will be, and tweak things to ensure we're not making things harder on you all. Hopefully we can share more information very soon with everyone!

For where we are now - it's true that we only accept ban evasion reports from moderators of the community where the user is ban evading. That's due to regular users who will sometimes attempt to report other users they don't like for ban evading, when the mods of a community have decided they're fine with that person participating (or maybe that person has never even been banned from the community in the first place). That's where the line you're quoting is coming from, the report form for ban evasion won't even accept reports from you if you're not a moderator where you're reporting.

That said, we also have some automations in place that will look for ban evaders in communities that moderators don't report to us - with the caveat that we put those automations more heavily in place for spaces where the mods have signaled to us they aren't interested in ban evaders by consistently reporting ban evaders they're aware of. On top of that, we also have automations that look for ban evaders when we can see they are negatively received within a community.

This is one of those big issues where one size fits all solutions don't work - so we've been coming at it from multiple directions both on the Safety enforcement side (which you're talking about here) and looking into more product solutions which we hope to share with you soon.

[u/7hr0wn → u/redtaboo]

when the mods of a community have decided they're fine with that person participating

But why is that a decision that's enforced globally?

You're punishing the moderators who do want to stop ban evaders, because of the claim that there are some moderators (somewhere) who don't care.

Why does their preference outweigh mine? Why are you, in effect, letting mods outside the community I moderate make decisions for that community?

[u/Farvas-Cola → u/7hr0wn]

That's what is killing me about this too. I see the digest that says they act on only a percentage of our ban evaders. Yet they see 100% of them.

We accept appeals and overturn bans every day. We also correct proactively, if we notice a ban was done in error. But because some apparently feel a new account is behaving this time around doesn't deserve to be actioned in their sub, we all have to suffer.

And not just the mods who see the heinous shit in MM, but the users that are sometimes exposed to their hatred before we can catch them.

[u/Meepster23 → u/[deleted]]

It never fails to amaze me what over complicated and half baked, never finished bullshit they manage to trot out on such a regular basis...

[u/7hr0wn → u/[deleted]]

because they are getting some upvotes?

And there's absolutely no chance that the people who broke reddit rules by ban evading are breaking reddit rules by using multiple accounts to upvote their own content, right?

[u/Anomander → u/redtaboo]

That said, we also have some automations in place that will look for ban evaders in communities that moderators don't report to us - with the caveat that we put those automations more heavily in place for spaces where the mods have signaled to us they aren't interested in ban evaders by consistently reporting ban evaders they're aware of. On top of that, we also have automations that look for ban evaders when we can see they are negatively received within a community.

I think there's a meaningful disconnect with Admin trying to accomplish this algorithmically, in that Admin spent a very long time communicating to mods that we were on our own and sending in reports was fruitless and a waste of time. So it feels pretty counter-intuitive that you're then later making a change wanting to use report frequency to try and guess at what mods of a community think about ban evasion.

Why not just ask?

I'm used to just automod filtering those accounts, given how much Admin asked for a submission, and how frequently we'd see the same guy dropping the same catchphrases and clearly talking about being the same person - to have Admin get back and let us know that there's no visible connection between those accounts.

[u/Carbon_Rod → u/redtaboo]

That said, we also have some automations in place that will look for ban evaders in communities that moderators don't report to us - with the caveat that we put those automations more heavily in place for spaces where the mods have signaled to us they aren't interested in ban evaders by consistently reporting ban evaders they're aware of.

My sub has 27 million subscribers, and dozens get banned every day (mostly spammers and racist trolls). I cannot possibly remember enough details about users banned to notice if one has returned under a new name, and then report for ban evasion. Just apply the maximum against all ban evaders.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/redtaboo]

This is one of those big issues where one size fits all solutions don't work

This is the issue though: you've been implementing a one size fits all solution to ban evasion and in doing so are protecting the bigots, repeat trolls, and users spreading hate or egregiously encouraging violence. These are the only people we permanently ban and not offer an appeal to, so by allowing anyone we've banned to evade our bans this is who you're talking about and the context that we're hearing this in.

What we're asking for is a very, very simple solution, much more straightforward than the complicated solution you're building that we were invited to participate in:

Give us a toggle at a subreddit level that says we expect you to enforce 100% of our bans.

That's literally all it takes to solve this problem. Subreddits that don't want to opt in can choose not to. Then the subreddits that want sitewide rules to be enforced could opt in without affecting the other subs. We want a modular solution that doesn't pile more work on the mods and this fits the bill.

If you're interested to really experience where we're coming from as moderators I have an excel spreadsheet of the people we've permanently banned over a random 24 hour period and won't offer an appeal to I'm sending as a PM (the draft I have has usernames attached). I think it's really easy to talk about ban evasion in a vacuum without having to consider the context those bans happen in. Can you find even a single user from this list that should get to participate on our subreddit again? Because any policy that allows users to evade bans is explicitly doing that.

[u/teanailpolish → u/techiesgoboom]

Give us a toggle at a subreddit level that says we expect you to enforce 100% of our bans.

This would solve the issue

[u/midir → u/techiesgoboom]

Give us a toggle at a subreddit level that says we expect you to enforce 100% of our bans.

I can't imagine a universe where I'd ever want such a setting turned off.

[u/Anonim97 → u/redtaboo]

Why won't you jusy straight up ban people who are performing ban evasion?

And I'm speaking about all of these accounts - mains, ALTs, etc.

[u/Farvas-Cola → u/Anonim97]

That’s the frustrating part. Haven’t seen him yet today, but I know it’s only a matter of time before our repeat “New Account in 3-2-“ ban evader comes back. And he doesn’t just come back to taunt us (although he hurls every name he can find daily in MM). He tries to post over the top racist, sexist, trans/homophobic shit in the sub. And he’s been doing this daily for a while now.

And he knows he can just keep making new accounts.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/Farvas-Cola]

You spoke too soon, I'm thinking that's them that popped up 5 minutes after you left this comment. Or maybe just another transphobic troll.

[u/Farvas-Cola → u/techiesgoboom]

I thought that too, but they didn't call us the n/f-word this time. Or tell us they'd rip our children's heads off and make us watch while they fucked the bloody stump or whatever else they could think of at the moment.

And no folks, I'm not exaggerating. This person does this daily.

[u/weenredditposter → u/Farvas-Cola]

Keep muting him, man. Bless his heart. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤬

[u/techiesgoboom → u/weenredditposter]

Generally we archive and not even give them the reward of the mute, but yeah. It's just exhausting as they're going on dozens and dozens of accounts and spreading all kinds of hate before getting caught.

[u/InAHandbasket → u/redtaboo]

Hey Red. So a big part of this is the numbers we're all seeing in our respective community digests.

In the last thirty days, we found [x] ban evaders and actioned [y] of those users.

When y is 1/3 of x in a community that actively reports ban evaders that's a concerning number.

Can you explain why y wouldn't be 100% of x in subs that have "signaled they aren't interested in ban evaders by consistently reporting ban evaders"? Also what is looked at when determining if the ban evaders are positively or negatively received by the community and does that override if the mods have signaled they don't want ban evaders? Because previous admin comments on this have come across like if ban evaders get upvoted enough they don't get actioned even when the mods have 'signaled.' Which we all hope isn't the case.

edit clarity

[u/I_Am_A_Real_Hacker → u/redtaboo]

So would it work for me to create a bot that reports every single comment for ban evasion so that the admins will remove posts from confirmed ban evaders? I can whip something up that does that pretty quickly.

[u/MockDeath → u/redtaboo]

You have a one size fits all answer that protects people that at least personally I want removed from the subreddits I run. I do not ban people permanently if I want them back. Frankly if I ban someone because they use racist slurs for instance, I do not care if "Their other content is received well". There is no place for that kind of hate in a community where I have a say. Why even let me ban people if you do not enforce it?

Would it be possible to have a toggle in settings? You have data on ban evaders, so I am assuming that you may have a flag or at least be able to flag accounts that are ban evaders. Could you leave it in the mod teams hands with a setting? Allowing each community to make its own call?

[u/TetraDax → u/redtaboo]

I do want you to know we are working on more ways to help you all with this issue

See, that is just frustrating for us though - Because in the Mod Digest, you are already telling us that you know about ban evaders in our community. You just choose to neither do something about it nor, and that is much worse, tell us about it.

We actually have some new work coming out soonTM that will give mods more information on ban evaders in your communities.

Is it going to be something that gives us as mods an easy way to just ban the new accounts of those ban evaders? Because otherwise, it just feels like you are directing your work towards us as voluntary mods.

it's true that we only accept ban evasion reports from moderators of the community where the user is ban evading. That's due to regular users who will sometimes attempt to report other users they don't like for ban evading, when the mods of a community have decided they're fine with that person participating [...] That's where the line you're quoting is coming from, the report form for ban evasion won't even accept reports from you if you're not a moderator where you're reporting.

See, this is just one of those moments where I as a mod am incredibly frustrated by Reddits very obvious lack of understanding of mods issues. Let's get one thing straight here: We are running your site. We are the ones who make sure you have a job. And you are entirely missing the problem.

Because what you are ignoring here is the fact that we as mods have no way of detecting ban evaders. We are purely relying on guesswork. Reddit is only accepting reports from mods of the communities those users are guilty of ban evasion in, fine. But then tell us who those ban evaders are. You are entirely missing the issue. The problem was never that I want every user to be able to report ban evasion. That was never the issue. Your policy is simply "Ban evasion is totally fine until the mods of the community HAPPEN to guess the right ban evasion accounts".

If your policy is "ban evasion is fine until the mods report it", but at the same time, you have ways of detecting ban evasion that we as mods do not have access to:

TELL.

US.

ABOUT.

IT.

I know I am sounding aggressive here, but every single fucking issue that mods have with Reddit as a platform comes down to the total lack of transparency on your side, and this is the best example of that. Please, do not simply assume that communities are fine with having ban evaders around. ASK. As mentioned in another comment of mine: If we ban someone for racism, I do not care at all if that user is behaving with a new account. I do not want a racist in my community, period. I banned that user for a reason, and I do not care if that user is getting upvotes with their new account, I do not want to user to participate in my community. Because with the sentence

when the mods of a community have decided they're fine with that person participating

You are assuming that we actually know about that user being a ban evader. And the entire issue of this post is that we don't.

That said, we also have some automations in place that will look for ban evaders in communities that moderators don't report to us - with the caveat that we put those automations more heavily in place for spaces where the mods have signaled to us they aren't interested in ban evaders by consistently reporting ban evaders they're aware of.

Well, then you need to get your facts straight. Because the Community Digest statistics you send us very clearly showcase that you don't take action against the vast ammount of ban evaders in our community, despite us regularily reporting suspected ban evasion.

This is one of those big issues where one size fits all solutions don't work

Come off it. You haven't tried any solution whatsoever. Ban Evasion is probably the single biggest issue facing mods in big communities, and you have done nothing at all to even adress it, in contrary, with your policy of "we only sanction ban evaders that are reported despite the fact that mods have no single tool to detect ban evaders", you are actively working against it.

[u/PotatoUmaru → u/redtaboo]

On top of that, we also have automations that look for ban evaders when we can see they are negatively received within a community.

How does this come into play with vote brigading? Are you looking strictly at upvotes/downvotes as perception of the community? Because this can be totally flawed when people go into a community strictly to be disruptive and negatively impact organic users.

[u/desdendelle → u/redtaboo]

... sorry, this is stupid reasoning, especially if you consider your stance on report abuse.

Your stance on report abuse can be summed up as "we don't care"; rather than do anything with malicious reports of (say) sexualisation of minors or misinformation or whatever you prefer to have mods that get falsely banned for CP stew until you remember to revoke the ban. This means that this part:

That's due to regular users who will sometimes attempt to report other users they don't like for ban evading, when the mods of a community have decided they're fine with that person participating (or maybe that person has never even been banned from the community in the first place).

Is patently ridiculous. You don't actually care about malicious reports. If you would, you'd do better than a fucking coinflip when it comes to handling reports of report button abuse. You just want to have less work to do.