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The Reddit Files
Confirmed

Reddit Ends Auto-Ban Bots That Punished Users for Other Subs

For years some subreddits used bots such as SaferBot and Hive-Protect to automatically ban anyone who had posted in communities on a blocklist, including political ones. On March 5, 2026, Reddit announced it would remove the bots' ability to ban users based solely on where they had posted, effective March 19.

Mar 5, 2026
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Whose side it served: Republicans

Ending participation-based bans mainly answered a long-running conservative complaint, though the bots targeted many kinds of communities.

What the record shows

In an r/modnews post titled 'Ban bot policy update: removing automated bans based on community association,' Reddit said third-party bots were 'often used to preemptively ban users based solely on their association with another community.' SaferBot's automatic ban feature was removed entirely, and Hive-Protect kept only its watch-list function. PiunikaWeb, covering the change, reported a claim posted on X that r/JusticeServed used SaferBot to ban over 70,000 users for posting in r/Conservative; the outlet did not independently verify that figure. Reddit's announcement used the term 'guilt-by-association' moderation, according to PiunikaWeb.

In their words

“automate bulk bans based solely on where a user has been”— Reddit, r/modnews ban bot policy update · source
The other side

The bots were used across the spectrum, including against users of hate or harassment communities, and moderators said they were a defense against brigading. The 70,000 figure for r/Conservative users has not been verified.

Sources

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