> I think you have to separate the admins, who are reddit employees, and the subreddit moderators, who are mostly not.

Admins created automod which delegated shadowbanning to moderators. Who's to blame for that? The mods or the admins? It's an age-old question whether kings or peasants are to blame for humanity's imperfections.

Some mods probably would have scripted something themselves, yet admins helped them and others along. You can go in circles trying to assign blame. I'm not sure there's an answer except to continue to try making it better.