Discord bot -> account ban

what happened

built discord-friender (automated friend requests) as part of discord-lattice (a Chrome extension that maps Discord friends into a network graph). the automation worked great — until Discord detected it and banned the account.

why it's a gotcha

platform automation is seductive. you see an API (or a pattern you can automate), you build something cool, and it works. until the platform detects it and nukes your account. Discord, Instagram, LinkedIn — they all have detection systems for automated behavior, and the penalties are real. recovering a banned account is painful and not guaranteed. same energy as hardcoding secrets — moving fast without reading the rules.

the fix

read the ToS, especially for platforms that actively detect automation. if the ToS says "no automated friend requests," they mean it, and they have systems to enforce it. if you want to build on a platform, use their official API within their rate limits. if the official API doesn't support what you want to do, that's a signal — not a challenge to work around. platform rules are admin rules, and staying on the admin's good side applies to digital platforms as much as school offices.