I remember people on Reddit (10 years ago) used to be knowledgeable and when new information appeared, that would matter. There's just so much ignorance now.
monkey brain see upvotes, monkey brain assume group consensus correct, monkey brain follow [0]. repeatedly banning or blackholing anything that goes against your desired narrative leads to a smaller and smaller percentage of users willing to speak out against the consensus, so these opinions become even more marginalized, repeat until desired level of radicalization is achieved.
it even happens on HN - heavily downvoted comments are presumed to be barely worth reading because multiple people went out of their way to downvote. you could control the public opinion of a small country with <$50k worth of black market upvotes per year. that kind of power doesn't and hasn't gone unnoticed
[0] see 1951 Asch conformity study
Not a single one of the 3 parties in Canada have a likeable head, it's shocking to see the people on there go nuts for this random goon.