Biology student's OpenAI account banned over flagged 'Biological Use' despite supervised research
iStyLEX23 · reddit · 2026-09-11
A Reddit user says his OpenAI account was deactivated for "Prohibited Biological Use" after he asked how to legally receive beneficial bacteria from the University of Oxford via established USDA channels — research on U.S. crop improvement already approved by his university under strict institutional oversight. He appealed with official documentation and papers, but OpenAI upheld the ban with what he describes as no real review. He argues blanket moderation can't distinguish legitimate supervised research from actual abuse and is making biological science unnecessarily hard to advance.
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