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.
great way to avoid the drama, but there’s a risk of false positives
I guess you don’t mind it, probably not losing anything of value
I don’t even live in the US, so indeed the risk of missing something relevant to me is quite low