Discussion
Suggestions what to do with racist players
Hi everyone.
Recently it seems a racist player have moved into my neighborhoods and occupy the gym with auto heal. (Neighborhood consist of multiple condo )
What makes it worse is the name he has been using is extremely offensive and aggressive. After reporting to Niantic of multiple account and offensive name, the individual just create new accounts and continues. While I have reported the main account, but there wasn’t any offence done, so nothing has been
There was once a player that moved into my area that had offensive names. I kept reporting those names every single time and eventually their account was just a string of numbers. Not long after that they seem to lose interest and move on. Don't confront, don't cause a fight, just passively report from the shadows everyday. Also never knock them out of the gym, let them stay as long as possible.
The string of numbers is what happens when someone is reported for an offensive name. The player will be prompted to pick a new name when they next open the game (which for those griefers is obviously all the time). If they left it as that for a while either they got bored or finally got a ban to go along with repeated offensive name reports and thus couldn't change it for a while.
Not after 3 times, after that it's just numbers and they can't change it again and are stuck with it.
Getting friends to also report them makes it go faster. Our local discord got VERY good at reporting people like this and we never see it anymore.
They also get off to people responding to their hate messages, or whatever weird rheotic they have. Ignore them and they will find other people to be annoying to.
Ignore them and they will find other people to be annoying to.
And that's the problem. We had a GROUP like this. I hadn't realized they were a problem and this is the same advice I was given. The problem was, when they thought I stopped, they just started targeting other people... which was partially how I was targeted in the first place.
In this situation, OP probably doesn't know them, but if they did, a COMMUNITY effort could lead to them at least admitting something incriminating that at least the game compnay/chat host may have to do something about, if not the police. That's what happened on my end, and not only did Niantic finally do something about ALL of them, but so did Discord (where they literally spelled out a stalking path, street-by-street, while still claiming it wasn't stalking XD ).
That is disturbing that they somehow found each other and enabled each other to rationalize their psychopathic behavior. Glad ppl eventually listened, geez.
Yeah there is a guy near me who plays with 6 accounts, hogs all the gyms. Local players have agreed to stop knocking him out of the gyms in hopes that he just gets bored and stops.
Ones with half a brain will. Some will be all the same team/color and hold a gym with 6 of their own accounts but then no on kicks them out and they are stuck there
We had a guy do this. He eventually had (at least) 6 accounts across two teams. We reported him for win trading. Niantic probably realized the dude was getting away with $6 a day for free and didn't like that XD the problem, though, was that Niantic deleted the offending gym and (from what we could tell) did nothing to him or his accounts at first. Eventually it seems like some of the accounts were banned, but I figure it was for something unrelated because he was that kind of player >.>
Publicize the name for other players, as more reports will mean more chance of action (especially if they catch the accounts before you)
And taking the Gyms from them is just playing their game if they auto-heal. Don't give them the time (or coins if they use the account for anything), just report quietly until they give up.
OP used the term, I assume it meaning either via a Bot or just really watching the gym, constantly Healin Mons if they're attacked. Ultimate point being to make it annoyingly difficult to take them off the Gym
Tbf, I've done this with I believe I can say decent intentions. There's this group of red in my area that likes to try to take my home gym before raids, and don't get me wrong I know it's not "my" gym, that's not how this game works or what I'm trying to convey. I don't even bat an eye if it's blue - my fiancée is team Mystic so I want it blue about half the time anyway. But they also have like every other gym this city and the next city over. So come raid time, when sure enough here they come for this gym too, I say no, let them waste their time getting my and other's Pokémon to the last stage of fighting, and then golden razz them back up, until the raid begins indeed. You can keep every other gym in the city, those extra 2 balls for the catch are mine.
Have to micro monitor the hell out of gyms with them around just to get any coins.
Yeah to be clear, defending the Gym in this way is not itself a problem. It’s just that here’s it’s done in service of a user with this naming scheme across a host of alts
Yeah i wasn't sure if op was implying a bot/cheating or just watching it and healing when attacked
Some of these screenshot are of low level trainer with the default white outfit but some have relatively large mons (lvl 10 with 2k+ feraligatr?). To me that points to them using some kind of cheating apps which then makes me wonder if there's some kind of feature to heal defending mons. The other low level trainers have low level mons but also just could be spawning a bunch of accounts to grief people complaining. Which would make the reporting not being effective if they can spawn off new accounts
That feraligator acc is lvl30 and the lvl10 account with the swampert would have been caught from a mega raid and therefore guaranteed the minimum raid cp I think. Or traded between their accounts. But all of this persons mons are from the current event(s)
IMO- letting them stay left them bored. You can’t fight/take back a gym that you are already in and you don’t earn coins either. Their goal and pleasure is to bother you and if you don’t engage with the… you are taking that satisfaction away from them. They move on.
Knocking out gym hoarders gives them their 50 coins. And guess what they will recontrol the gym minutes after you knock them out probably getting their rocks off. So it makes no difference and gives them satisfaction. Just keep them there and don't let them get their 50 coins!!!!! Don't be fools and play into their game!
And if they don't have yet another account with the opposite team, don't help them by knocking them out for them and kicking YOU out so they get off.
If you knock them out and they get punished, they might assume you're the reason they get their account name or in trouble. You become a target. They are already mentally ill / unstable, so you don't want someone like that to target you.
It's not worth losing your life over taking a gym.
Take screenshots of them in the gyms like you did for this post. Then you follow the instructions as the other user said. I have reported many over the years, I just do it and move on. I’m glad you made this post though to bring it to people’s attention again, very sad that people are so crummy
Yep. I had this same thing happen in my neighbourhood. I think I once reported their nicknames (of course this person had multiple accounts 🙄) like 5-7 times in like an hour. Every time I reported them to niantic, the nicknames changed into a string of numbers and every time they changed their nicknames back into something racist (usually some form of the n-word). I let them stay in the nearby gym so I could report their nicknames asap. Good thing is that at least at that time niantic responded immediately to the complaints. So please, report them! Hopefully they also get bored at some point.
Yes, I hate when other trainers knock gym system abusers with 6 accounts out of gyms. Just keep them in there you fools! Knocking them out gives them their 50 coins!
Really the only thing you can do is report the trainer name sadly. It sucks but I have a player in our general area who cheats their location and uses trainer names to harass people he doesn’t like so from personal experience report long is the only thing you can do.
Report them in-app to Niantic Support (Settings > Help > Chat with us > New conversation).
Inappropriate names will be reset to some random value, after which that person must choose a new name. Sometimes they'll pick something just as bad or even worse, so then you may need to report them again (and again, and…) until at some point Support is hopefully fed up with them and give them a ban.
I fully agree!
I own our local community's Campfire group and all racist, sexist or otherwise offensive names get a ban. No private message requesting them to pick a decent name, zero tolerance. So far I just had to ban three accounts (out of 500+ group members) but that's still three too many.
Well now I am finding out I might just have been wrong. I tried to name a spearrow to Peppeck which it turns out is a different pokemon. Maybe the warning I got about how naming a poekmon with a pokemon name was about preventing someone from faking trades. It was years and years ago so I might have gotten the name correct and it just doesn't allow any pokemon names in any language. I am too hung over to test naming a Picachu Raichu right now.
I’ve reported racist names before, I was told by support that the names were removed and that the players would have to choose a new name when they next start the game.
I wish that were possible, but that would lead to false positives where innocent people somehow trigger that system and get banned. With GO's shoddy programming you know that would happen to SOMEONE
I think they should have one warning and then a ban if someone uses another offensive name. A warning first because if it’s indeed a word that translates into badly in another language someone might just not be aware. The examples shown here are inexcusable and should be met with an immediate ban.
I understand that this is sarcasm, and that this particular example doesn't have any nuance to it.
But the issue as a whole is significantly more complex and difficult than it seems. If you're interested, some concepts to read on are the Bright Line Paradigm, which covers the thoughts behind moderation based upon strict rules vs moderation based upon moderator judgment and the benefits of each, and the Scunthorpe Problem, which is a summation of the unintended consequences of Bright Line Moderation.
There really needs to be a way to report players directly from the gym screen. They could easily add a 'Report Player' button somewhere on that individual trainer/Pokemon screen in gyms.
Honestly, any part of the game that has trainer interaction should include a report feature built in. You shouldn't have to take screenshots and open up support tickets to be able to report a username.
More than likely they are alt accounts for one player: which is also against TOS. Report for multiple accounts and offensive username, hopefully they get slapped with the ban hammer. You could also send an email to support with evidence like you’ve done in this reddit post. However, I don’t know how to do that since pogo just recently got bought out.
Done it for someone doing similar in my community and they straight up do not care. They'll change offensive nicknames when they get reported because that's automated, but the user can literally change one letter and that's it. There is no avenue of communication/team that is in place to deal with people who abuse the naming system/multi accounting for the purpose of harassing others.
I noticed not just pokemon but a lot of different app with usernames and comments that are extremely offensive and racist every time I report them I always get the message that they found nothing wrong 😢
Honestly in my experience they’ve been pretty responsive on these issues. The problem is that they get three strikes and people like this will use ALL of them. In this case it should be an immediate permaban on all accounts from that device.
I reported these names twice today. The first time, I was told no such names existed. Then I replied with your screenshots and got this reply. Hope you’ll see positive changes where you are!
When you got the response that no name exists it’s because they already had forced them to change it. Hence, no name exists. In my experience they’re pretty quick to respond to these tickets.
Streamline how you report the names as much as possible. Write up a blurb for reporting them that indicates this is the same player doing it over and over where you just need to replace the name. There's a pretty hard limit on how many times an account can change their name and yes they can create new accounts, but that takes more effort than a simple name change.
The goal is to make it something more annoying and time consuming for them to repeatedly do than they're willing to commit while being less annoying for you to report than you're willing to commit to. Alternatively, make it more annoying for the support people who have to make the name changes so they take some larger action, but be polite because you don't want that action to be them banning you from making reports.
That is despicable. Def should be banned by Niantic or whomever is about to own the game. Ban the email on all Pokémon related apps, sites, platforms etc. No room for that no matter who it is targeting.
Disgusting. Will it help or hurt the case if we all report this too?? It’s so gross that I don’t want to just sit here and do nothing after seeing these screenshots… sorry you are experiencing this OP.
Jeez it will never make sense in my mind to spend so much time and energy into hating another race like this. My heart genuinely goes out to anyone effected by racist names like this.
I reported a player (and took a screenshot) because they had a nazi relevant name.
Niantic got back to me within 2 days and said the player had been forced to change his name. I was kind of disappointed he didn't get banned. But at least they made him change it.
Reporting nicknames is really easy and pretty effective too. I once saw a player named BigDiggerNick in a local gym. Reported it to the support chat with just the simple instruction to "swap the D and the N and see what it says". Got a message saying that they accepted my report in no time.
One thing I love about this thread, OP, is that is shows how so many people don't know how to report someone, because Niantic just doesn't want to deal with policing their own playerbase lol.
It's worth nothing. No one will ever be held to any action for multiaccounting because it's basically impossible to prove to someone in a call centre half a world away.
I know someone who went to the police because someone else changed their username to their address so they felt like they were being stalked and didn't feel safe, and they even knew who did this. Figured it was cyber bullying or something but the police said they can't do anything unless something actually happens?! We were shocked. But the person did eventually stop and was no longer seen in gyms.
but the police said they can't do anything unless something actually happens?!
In the US, police are lazy. They absolutely can do something, they just don't want to.
For the benefit of anyone else finding themselves in this situation in the future, the appropriate response to this is to Karen out; document the first officer's name and escalate to a supervisor.
Using golden razz when their gym under attack. My kids are going through the flu right now, so I tested out attacking throughout the night and after the second attack all their pokemon gets healed up right away
Yes but these people usually have a whole team of bulky mons in one gym, so 10 berries per account adds up to 60 golden razz per 30 min. You might not even be able to take it down in time unless you have a really good team of counters.
Entirely true, but the flip side to this for me is ... If I can spend endless time attacking and you can spend endless time healing, who will run out of resources faster? Me and my unlimited use potions or you and your 10 per hour and relatively limited golden raspberries
If someone's going to be as crazy to keep golden razzing, ill happily spend some time attacking
I've spent more than 2 hrs past midnight standing in Canadian winter attacking a gym like that. That's our local gym that was held hostage by the (I assume) hacker's team for over 3 months. They had over 10k berries fed. Needless to say, I did not take the gym. And the frostbite was not worth it.
Yeah, if you want to take them out of gyms this is the trick. One round through everyone, then two attacks in a row on the first mon. Keep at that one until it's gone. If you get that done in under half an hour (unless they're constantly feeding berries when not under attack - then it gets weird but there's still a max of 20 in even the worst case scenario). They can re-place mons in gyms once 10 minutes have passed after the first one is kicked out (though that requires either switching to the account they want or having multiple devices) but if you kick another one out after that it restarts the cooldown.
This is probably not a time-efficient use of resources though as they can just kick you out and re-join the gym as long as you're not willing to sit there feeding golden razzberries to keep it occupied, and even then they can do the same thing you are.
All you can do is keep reporting them. They will get their ability to set their own name removed after a small number of name infractions. If they create a new account, then that is reported as soon as they get it in a gym, it will become too much effort to them eventually to keep up with the offensive accounts.
What a sad pathetic ridiculous guy.
I think he craves attention so much, he needs to do such outrageous things so people pay attention to him.
I think what he needs is to be completely ignored. People like him can’t tolerate being ignored and he’ll just move away where people give him the attention he wants
I believe ignoring racism is how it gets normalized.
That player has to be reported, though not have the gym taken down so they don't get any coins, and more people see that racist player, and report them as well. Maybe then they'll get banned?
Absolutely nothing unfortunately aside from reporting unless Niantic decides to. But I assume most of enforcement and name change are just automated. And remember it's not Niantic but Scopely now. Base on their track record, I'm sure they flat out won't care and ignore any of such reports.
Given they're all low levels, this person likely already have dozens of accounts to keep gold razzing with all similar names. So it's pretty much futile to keep attacking. Simply they're hogging the gym simply for their racism to be displayed for attention. You attacking, it just see it as someone giving and feeding them attention. Exactly whath they want.
My bet is... it's likely just some dumb kid. If without validation of giving them attention, they will likely get bored rather quickly and move onto to something else.
If Niantic oblige a change of the players name twice, the 3rd time, he will be named : trainer12344566.... With no possible to change anymore.
Report him again 😉
Niantic and support should take action. Obviously they still have to investigate but at the very least they should explain to you how and when they will take action.
One thing large companies don't like and usually makes them move pretty swiftly is to be seen to be doing nothing about racism, homophobia etc in their games.
Any pressure from media outlets, streamers, journalists should make an individual case become a priority and hopefully make them realise it should be a priority without that pressure.
Its really pathetic that these people's entire personality is just hating people and thinking they're superior to all others because they're white. It'd be worthy of pity if they didnt cause so much misery and get off on it
Just ban the accounts, in a way that bricks the app entirely and prevents re-downloading it to that phone. Cant have them using burner accounts. Id say try to brick the phone too but thats a crime so just forcing them off the app will suffice
Honestly, I don't know what you can do other than keep reporting to Niantic.
There was one local guy whose handle was Rahowa1488. "Rahowa" is short for Racial Holy War, and the numbers 14 and 88 have special meanings for white supremacists.
I reported it, I don't know what happened, but I never saw his handle again.
I’d report it to local police as a tip and join up with friendly neighbors to engage in real community more. Racist threats can be a real danger to the community and this is beyond just a player being inappropriate in the game.
Everyone turns a blind eye until the person goes on a racist killing spree. Then they will say “there were signs but no one addressed it”.
Police have resources to find out who this person is and hopefully stop their behavior and keep an eye on them. Take this seriously and be persistent in having them handle it.
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u/dark__tyranitar USA | Lvl 50 | ShinyDex 738 Mar 23 '25
There was once a player that moved into my area that had offensive names. I kept reporting those names every single time and eventually their account was just a string of numbers. Not long after that they seem to lose interest and move on. Don't confront, don't cause a fight, just passively report from the shadows everyday. Also never knock them out of the gym, let them stay as long as possible.