Daisy, an AI granny wasting scammers' time

This reminds me of “shadow banning” - instead of letting the misbehaving user know they’ve been banned, and let them find a way around it, you make them believe they’re not banned and let them waste their time interacting with the system (without actually interacting with others), this makes them spend less time on actual misuse and it makes the penalty for it more expensive. Good strategy. Cruel too.

So I don’t think that this is just entertaining PR, I can see why it’s better than simply banning the scammers. Still a question of cost though.

No doubt it has been misused at some point or another, but shadow banning in the context of online communities is generally a last-resort defense against the very worst and most prolific trolls. Not someone who accidentally breaks forum etiquette one time.

A person who is shadow banned generally continues their antisocial behavior in the face of multiple warnings and reprimands. I don't see it as cruel. I see it as defending the community against those who get pleasure out of trying to wreck it. It's effective because the bannee is generally too dim to realize what has happened to them until they get bored and go away.