``Perhaps a few went rogue and deleted comments.'' Very likely the case. Too often the case.

Favorite example, it appears a long time ago one graduate student at MIT didn't like Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novels. The student was working part time, moderating Darpanet. So he found an excuse, and banned Jerry from Darpanet. The other administrators apparently accepted the excuse, or even agreed with the ban while mentioning they too didn't like the novels.

You never know you said publicly that offends somebody who possess administrative power. Even minor power. It's genuinely difficult to anticipate what phrase offends some people.

(Some people with a lot of time on their hands are also not all there. I've gotten flagged by flat earth folks with more SP to get my attention, so they can then spam me, blocked by crazy people who first Dm'd me because apparently I didn't reply fast enough to suit their taste, etc. Etc.)

Today such people have an excuse, some script, or a bot, rules. The systems we have for moderation are far too opaque to be able to distinguish mistakes.

Discord has bots that delete links. Everybody else has gotten more sophisticated in their censoring, because it works beautifully to change consensus. And waaaaaay too many people want influence and know it works. Even in obscure subreddits.

In my opinion, Murakami (198Q) has observed correctly that most people want to feel like what they do is important, rather than consider simple reality.

Our brains aren't used to being in cynical mode all the time. When our species evolved there were no communication tools, no images, no artificial sounds, and what we saw, heard, was what there was. Much of our brain operates on naive realism. Therefore even if users know a conversation is being censored or modified, most of them still feel preconsciously, most of the time, that an observed conversion is basically valid. That its meaning has not been substantially or irrecoverably changed. That information has been lost. And that, as Heinlein frequently wrote, intentional omission is the most powerful form of lying.

This can shape opinion. Most individuals moderating know this, either by reflection or trial and error. And long ago, when I was student, in one game theory class, I was even tested on this. It's not a secret, but a social technology that allows more productively working with some mediums, and people use technology. We people are tool users.

``. . . why it's important to separate out the content layer into a decentralized database (i.e. blockchain) and allow any frontend to be built on top.'' Agreed.