Claude sees another wave of account bans: Hong Kong, China users hit en masse, even 3-year-old accounts banned.

Insight Beating AI News Flash: Anthropic’s Claude has faced a fresh wave of mass account ban complaints recently. The South China Morning Post reports that on October 1, multiple users in Hong Kong, China suddenly received account suspension notices. They had previously accessed Claude via virtual private networks (VPNs), with some having used the service for up to half a year. A user on Chinese tech forum V2EX also noted their three-year-old account was deactivated. A key focus of the recent bans is region restrictions: Anthropic’s official supported regions do not include mainland China, Hong Kong, or Macau. Some users received emails explicitly citing "violation of supported region policy". Even switching VPN exit locations to the U.S. or Singapore does not meet compliance requirements, as the company mandates users be physically present in supported regions. However, some users have complained of suspected wrongful bans. A paying user claiming to reside in the U.S. posted on GitHub that their account was banned due to region policy. After appealing, Anthropic refused to restore the account under the pretext of "violating usage policy" without specifying the exact infraction. The user added that the appeal channel was closed, and contacting other support teams yielded no effective resolution. Anthropic has not disclosed the scale of the recent bans nor confirmed it is conducting a new round of mass cleanup. The company updated its usage policy on October 8, reaffirming the scope of its region restrictions.