Was recently granted the privilege of a permanent ban on reddit for a username I had for over four years and it led me down the rabbit hole of seeing more and more claims from other people who went through similar experiences. Hell, there's a lot of them. Frivolous reports resulting in punishment, appeals being automatically denied, the works, etc.
It might just be a presumption, seeing how many bots slide under the radar each day on that site through posts and comments, but I have a strong feeling that most (seemingly random) admin bans are designed to flush out active and semi-active human users rather than weed out bot code posing as people online. The end goal? Whether it's to create an automated, cyclical platform designed to extract marketing and ad revenue from a steady stream of new users or anything else for that matter, I know not. All I know for certain is that the ban tendencies have ramped up in the recent year and the people actually being punished for it are those who have been using it for long periods of time and manage to conveniently fall on the edge of a subjective TOS offense.
I had my suspicions that it was gradually turning into an AI-fueled cesspit, but now I've had my chance to really believe that it has. Good riddance in that case
When it gets re-released for the 6th time.