A Consideration Concerning The Banning of a Toxic Streamer

About a day ago now, a streamer was summarily banned from the game indefinitely for being exceptionally toxic and breaking a number of other rules.

His name is unknown to me, and the events leading to and subsequent from this ban are not my concern in the slightest. From the evidence presented concerning the decision, it is pretty clear as to why the ban happened in the first place, if not even a bit surprising that it did not happen sooner.

The interesting thing I find about all of this is the wording Riot used when doing so.

You see, they basically declared that they would ban this guy "if an account was positively identified as being his." This is not necessarily to say that he cannot play the game again ever.

He just has to do so in silence, under the radar.

Yes, there are many ways to track an account back to him. If he uses the same email, IP address, or streams his gameplay, for instance, he'll almost certainly be identified and subsequently banned as promised. But say he takes a different route. Say he chooses a more anonymous path, takes the steps to cover his tracks, and plays like a normal, non-toxic player. Basically continuing the path many claim he was recently taking, but with the key difference of not playing under a name associated with HIM, specifically. He would still be able to play so long as he flew well enough under the radar, which honestly isn't so difficult to accomplish when you know the basics of what to do. Riot would essentially never know, and have no reason to intervene, because it would not be "Tyler1 the infamous toxic streamer with 18 banned accounts to his name", but a regular, hopefully decent player like many millions of others out there.

Riot isn't stopping him from playing, in spite of the severity of the punishment they have dealt; they're stopping him from playing the way that he has to garner such punishment in the first place. In effect, they're denying him the chance to abuse the system brazenly in the public eye and further promote and perpetuate the toxic approach he has taken. He must now either slip into the anonymous masses and remain hidden among them, or quit the game. It's his choice at this point; given his persistence in creating new accounts and his behavioral history, I wouldn't put either approach beyond him. In a way, being banned in the manner he has could be a blessing in disguise, as he could find a way to play without the history of his name dragging him down.

I will say this: if he is genuine in his desire to reform, he will take the anonymous route and not be heard from again. If not, he will quit and try something else, probably repeating his behaviors in another game, and another, until eventually he runs out of places to play that are willing to have him around. I am not here to say which is better, or whether he would be successful or not either way. Like I said, I frankly don't know much about the guy and don't really care to find out, either. But I found this point interesting amidst the swirling controversies, excesses of saltiness, and other musings I've seen thus far, and simply wished to make note of it.