We experienced that too, at a much higher rate. Mods would get blamed for deletions AutoMod would do. Turned into quite a shitshow.
Sorry, how are mods not responsible for the bot they coded?
Or, are you saying users were attributing the removals to humans rather than understanding that it was done by a script?
If the latter, then I'm not sure the distinction is so important for users. What they care about is understanding why their content was removed, not how. And I think that is a fair question.
In the real world, we do not throw criminals in jail without explaining what they did wrong and putting that in the public record. Obviously it's different online, but I think at the very least users should be able to discover when their content has been removed. The system shouldn't pretend that their removed content is publicly visible. And, there is some research that indicates that when mods provide removal explanations on posts, it reduces the likelihood of that user having a post removed in the future [1]. That's a reduction in mod workload that should be of interest to moderators, and it was researched and published before Reddit started showing post removal notices on posts [2]. Prior to that, all posts were shadow removed. Now only some are shadow removed, and all comments are shadow removed. To my knowledge, this research has not yet been done for comments.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/duwdco/should_mode...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/e66fql/post_remo...
Again, you seem to be very confused about private property.
Think of it as a civil action, which at least in US law, that is operated under a completely different set of books and assumptions. For example I can tell you to leave my properly in a civil action without any explanation why. If you come back a criminal charge can be presented against you.
Much like a business can remove its patrons at will for (nearly, civil rights apply) any reason they can be negatively impacted if and when they do this to too many people and the patronage stops coming, you still don't have any legal right to their property.
That was an analogy that you've taken completely out of context and on another tangent.
As you've stated in this thread, an involuntary contract between the government, the media company, and the user are not optimal as it tends to give more power to political entities. Voluntary contracts between the business and non-paying users are seemingly just as worthless, no for profit entity is going to hobble itself in a such a risky manner. As it stands that contract is "We the media company can do whatever we like, and you can jump off a bridge".
It is possible for user outrage to change the media companies behavior, but when there are no valid alternatives because of network effects, companies will commonly say they are going to change to placate quell the masses, and then do nothing because the users will remain on the site anyway. Many places have tried compete against Reddit, but mostly under the 'no moderation' banner in which the sites become a toxic hell hole. As of so far 'better moderation' has not been a motivator to get users to shift. Maybe your work will lead people that way.
> As you've stated in this thread, an involuntary contract between the government, the media company, and the user are not optimal
I said no such thing, and I have no idea what you're talking about. Good one, I'm sure you thoroughly confused a few people.