A form of bait designed to provoke a user into violating community rules so they can be banned—either from a specific server or from an entire platform. Banbaiting involves subtle provocation: insulting the target's beliefs, triggering their trauma, questioning their integrity—anything that might elicit a response that breaks rules. The baiter remains calm, civil, rule-abiding, while the target, provoked, snaps. When the target curses, threatens, or attacks, the baiter screenshots and reports. The target is banned; the baiter remains, innocent-seeming, ready for the next victim. Banbait is the art of making someone else pay the price for your provocation.

Example: "He calmly disagreed with her politics, then insulted her intelligence, then mocked her education. She called him an asshole. He screenshotted immediately, reported her for harassment, and she was banned. Banbait had worked perfectly: he'd stayed within the rules while provoking her into breaking them. She was gone; he was still there, baiting the next target."

Banbait by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 18, 2026

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