Shadow bans are definitely nefarious and worse than regular ones because it’s quiet and you don’t know for a while. I know a few people who have been shadow banned on the big platforms. Not in the physical world but virtual, I know them. It’s pretty shitty because so much of it is just a message they don’t want to get out. Such as not wanting a platform like hive being advertised on the legacy platform such as Reddit.
Hive has its challenges for sure and it’s good to strive for improvements all the time. The challenge is there are idealists who don’t want to do anything unless it’s perfect. The world is full of areas we need to compromise. Hive has plenty of those balances but I think we do a really good job overall. A lot of the people with moderate to high stakes don’t maliciously down vote people unless there’s a pretty clear reason. Warning s are given and sometimes ignored so it escalates. Life has consequences and sadly people are coddled too much to understand that.