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The mod banning these users is the same mod who made the posts they downvoted. This is mod abuse, turning the downvote button into an auto-self-ban button.
The message is "If you disagree with me, you will be banned"
Monitoring and banning users for using lemmy as intended to signal boost your opinion should be grounds to have all mod privileges removed. This behaviour undermines the integrity of the server and the wider fediverse.
The federative structure of the fediverse means that your average community moderator is way more accountable than a subreddit moderator is on reddit, to be fair.
In theory maybe, but have we actually seen a community migrate away from a sub or the admins step in because of power tripping?
Onehundredninetysix and the Trek meme split.