Handle users who go against websites terms

Question

I'm unsure which stack community to post on, but I felt this was the most appropriate. I have a report user function on my website. If a user is reported, they are given a warning and then a ban if they are reported again. I would like to know how I should handle the warning. I have the following options:

• Prevent all other users from seeing the reported user's account
• Delete the user's content which goes against the website's terms

I'm unsure as to which would be most appropriate. Though this question may be opinion based, I would like to know which would be most effective with dealing with: spam, bulling, pretending to be someone else, hate speech, threats etc.

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you delete content and find out that the user was banned in error you may find it hard to revoke that ban.

If you don't have an audit trail you may also have problems if the user starts legal action against the service. So blocking the account may be safer than deleting it.

(If the banned content is possibly illegal then you need proper advice from lawyers.)

Answer 2

A good way could be to "Delete the user's content which goes against the website's terms" along with a description as to why is it being removed. It might be useful to ask the reported user if the content was submitted by them (in case this is a hacked account.)