[Question or DISCUSSION idk] Did I report someone illegally?

[Kewlz]

So I reported 2 impersonators and they got banned but my friend says they didn't deserve a ban. The accounts were called KewIz (with an i) and Smarter Kewlz. They were pretending to be me but my friend says they didn't do anything maliciously (note my friend was one of these impersonators)

[Dragoria]

Impersonation isn't allowed. If it wasn't against the rules they wouldn't have gotten a ban for it.

[Delitai]

No you didn't report someone illegally. You are justified and have the right to do it. Also your friend is wild for doing that

[Sarzonia]

In general, I don't think reporting someone for what you think might be rulebreaking behaviour is against the rules

There could be exceptions, but I think those would veer into a different category of rules violations. The most likely worst case scenario for an honest report is probably a not actionable ruling.

[Volstrostia]

Reporting a nation doesn't mean it's automatically banned by some computer system - a mod had to have come in, looked at the report, agreed that they were impersonating you, and decided deletion of the offending nations was warranted. If the mod thought otherwise, you probably would have gotten a "not actionable" response.

[El Lazaro]

Not a legal expert, but provided you live in a country with a reasonable degree of freedom of expression, as long as you don’t post blatantly unlawful content or hack the website, you’re probably not doing anything illegal.

[Fahran]

No, you did not report someone "illegally." Really, that isn't a thing unless you're attempting to employ Moderation as a weapon against people you dislike or want removed from the site.

Your friend and the other user were violating the rule against malicious impersonation. While they can claim the impersonation wasn't malicious, the fact that it was reported at all and that they were explicitly impersonating another user in particular stands as pretty ample evidence against that defense.

Rules-lawyering isn't something that's going to sway decisions of this nature.