A Deep Dive into the Story Behind Anthropic's Ban Wave: The Safety Religion, the AI Civil War, and Claude's Dilemma Amid US-China Decoupling

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Deconstructing the underlying logic of why Anthropic has become a "ban-happy" monster: This is not just the founder's obsession with safety, but a survival dilemma for Claude involving power struggles in Silicon Valley and the geopolitical decoupling between China and the US. (Context: The open-source project badclaude, which accelerated Claude code, received a cease-and-desist letter from Anthropic for copyright infringement.) (Background: Goldman Sachs Hong Kong employees were blocked from using Claude; Anthropic admitted it has never supported the HK region, as AI geopolitical restrictions continue to spread.) In April 2026, at an agricultural technology company in the US called Agricultural Technology Company, employees turned on their computers as usual, preparing to use Claude Code for coding, data, and supply chain analysis, only to find that 110 employee accounts had been banned without any warning. The company's network administrator received an email from Anthropic: "Activity violating the usage policy has been detected; your account has been suspended." Although the accounts were collectively banned, the backend API was still functioning normally and charging fees as usual; the company's network administrator even received payment reminders. Subsequently, the company's managers sent appeal emails and contacted Anthropic, but ultimately made no progress. The "strike" of Claude Code left the entire team paralyzed. At the same time, on Chinese internet platforms like V2EX, Zhihu, and Juejin, Claude users were complaining: some had just topped up their Max subscriptions only to have their accounts banned instantly; some used virtual cards to bind their accounts, and as soon as the payment succeeded, the system prompted "account violation" and banned them; others used third-party tools to log in and were directly blacklisted by the system, with 4 accounts banned in three months, and not a single appeal successful. In fact, as Anthropic stormed the market with its flagship product Claude Code and reached the top tier, it has become a recognized "ban-happy" monster. According to Anthropic's Transparency Hub, risk control data released in January 2026 for the second half of 2025 shows that in just six months, 1.45 million accounts were banned across the platform. A total of 52,000 appeals were filed, but only 1,700 were successful. This means the success rate of appeals was only 3.3%. Image source: Anthropic In other words, out of 100 users who felt they were wrongly banned, only about 3 could get their accounts back, while the remaining 97 had to accept their bad luck. This shows that Anthropic does not operate on the principle of "investigating facts before punishing according to rules" as we understand it. It is more about preventive enforcement—using high-coverage interception to nip risks in the bud is its core goal. It would rather kill 1,000 innocent accounts than let one slip through. In contrast, ChatGPT and Google Gemini are relatively gentler. ChatGPT is much more tolerant of third-party tools and edge prompts, with relatively loose account banning. Even when Gemini occasionally tightens risk control, it rarely engages in unannounced collective punishment or mass slaughters. Only Anthropic treats "banning" as a daily routine, especially with Claude Code, which has become a disaster area for account bans. So why is Anthropic's user policy so strict? I believe the reasons are relatively complex. This involves founder Dario Amodei's personal obsession, the factional split at OpenAI, the power games of Silicon Valley capital, and the civil war between the "safety camp" and the "accelerationist camp" in the US AI industry. It is also related to the geopolitical chess game of China-US AI decoupling—a grand game hidden behind code concerning the future control of AI and global technological barriers. In this article, let us deconstruct it layer by layer. The root of Anthropic's strict risk control is hidden in the life trajectory of founder Dario Amodei. Every choice he made and every obsession he held eventually turned into Anthropic's "zero-tolerance" iron law, and also into the account ban emails received by countless users. Dario Amodei's recent official portrait. Image source: Fortune In 1983, Dario Amodei was born into an ordinary immigrant family in San Francisco. His father was an Italian-American leather craftsman who relied on his skills for a living; he was stubborn and valued clear distinctions between right and wrong. His mother was Jewish and worked on library renovation projects; she was meticulous and instilled in Dario from a young age the idea that "responsibility is above all else." This family atmosphere caused Dario to develop a personality of sticking to his principles and holding the line, unable to tolerate any ambiguity or compromise.

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