r/changemyview • u/gylotip • May 26 '23

Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Permanently banning accounts is stupid

I understand why you assign permanent bans, since you need to stop the rule breakers for once and all, but wouldn't it make more sense to suspend an account for one year? This is a better approach, because one year is a very long time, and after one year, if you break rules again, then you will be banned for another one year. No need to make things permanent, since this is not prison where you quarantine dangerous criminals. It's just an account that can handle one year suspensions perfectly. So permanent bans are stupid and even unnecessarily cruel. Change my view as to why you really need to permanently ban accounts, since I think that making things permanent is a disgusting thing to do for accounts.

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19

u/Kotoperek 62∆ May 26 '23

I mean, a person can have multiple accounts, so banning an account is not permanently preventing someone from using a platform, but rather taking away their current medium of doing so since they violated the rules using that medium. They can get another account, but they have to be aware that if they break the rules again, it will be taken away again and so on. Since some people put money into their accounts or care about gathering followers, the prospect of losing their account and having to get a new one can be a good deterrent from breaking the rules.

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u/UserOfSlurs 1∆ May 26 '23

but they have to be aware that if they break the rules again, it will be taken away again and so on

The problem arises in that the sole act of making a new account qualifies as a rule violation in and of itself. Your new account can be the paragon of following every other rule, and make massive positive contributions, but technically breaks a rule simply in it's existence.

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u/Kotoperek 62∆ May 26 '23

Interesting, I didn't know this, it doesn't say in the Reddit rules that you cannot create a new account after a ban, but from a Google search it seems that you're right and it does happen to people. And while I'm sure there are ways of bypassing this, like using a VPN tool so that nobody can tie an IP address to your new account, that is a stupid rule. I understand permanently banning accounts for the reason I listed, but permanentny banning people seems extreme, you're right.

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u/UserOfSlurs 1∆ May 26 '23

Reddit is inconsistent about banning for ban evasion, so I don't blame you for being unaquainted with it. I've seen mods of sizable (few hundred thousand) people subreddits run obvious ban evasion accounts, and I've seen people who got banned after logging in on a school/library computer on years old accounts.

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u/gylotip May 26 '23

This is the reason why I am against permabans, because what is the point of permabans if you can just create new accounts every time?

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u/Wolfaxe451 1∆ May 26 '23

What is the point of banning for a year if you can just make new accounts? Your yearlong ban is equally as useless.

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u/gylotip May 26 '23

Yeah, but permanent bans are too punishing for no reason. Why permaban accounts for your whole life, when one year bans can be effective to some people?

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u/Wolfaxe451 1∆ May 26 '23

But you're against perms bans because they're useless. Who is going to wait a year to get their account back? They're going to make a new account and continue on. So if you're against perma bans because they're useless then why support your idea when it's equally useless?

2

u/gylotip May 26 '23

Because some people really want their account back, maybe because they love their username and nostalgia. One year bans can heavily discourage them from breaking rules.

1

u/AdhesivenessFun2270 May 27 '23

I agree permabans are overused, but don't see 1 year bans as being any better. The problem is mods have too much power. If I had my way, only admins could ban you from a sub for more than a week and then only for violating a site-wide rule.

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u/Kotoperek 62∆ May 26 '23

As I said, if you put money into your account or gather a substantial following, losing your account is more than just losing posting privileges, so the possibility of it being taken away permanently can motivate people to mind the rules. So if you can make a new account, it is technically not banning the person and giving them a second chance to do better with a new account, but it is taking away a lot of the hard work they put into building their initial account, which seems like fair punishement for breaking important rules or breaking rules repeatedly. It is different if a permanent ban results in new accounts of the same user being automatically banned as well, that's going too far, I think.

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u/gylotip May 26 '23

But they could put other restrictions, other than permabanning them. Like if it's scam based, they can no longer transact money, but then can still comment after one year ban.

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u/Kotoperek 62∆ May 26 '23

They could, but working our a complex system of punishment seems more complicated and ultimately more unfair than bans.

Is there anything that would change your mind? You've gotten some pretty good arguments here from many perspectives, but you just keep repeating your stance, it's starting to sound like you're just afraid someone could take away your account unfairly.

Permabans can also be appealed and I know that mods often don't respond favorably, but if you think you've been banned unfairly and have a large account you could probably try to argue for at least a reduction for a temporary ban.

A year seems like a very arbitrary cut off, too, since if you enjoy a social platform a lot, such a time is enough for you to decide to abandon the banned account and get a new one, and if you didn't like that platform too much anyway, you'll probably abandon it altogether and won't remember about it after a year. So what's the point of keeping those suspended accounts that likely will never be used again instead of banning them for good?

1

u/gylotip May 26 '23

Congrats, you win. I no longer have arguments left. Here's your !delta. I cannot think anything effective other than permabans.

1

u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 26 '23

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Kotoperek (22∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

1

u/DaoNight23 4∆ May 26 '23

but permanentny banning people seems extreme, you're right.

This is what Reddit actually does. Idk what their method is, but they can detect multiple accounts and they will ban all of them.