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.
I remember blocking this account on my personal feed and wondering if I did so prematurely. I'm thinking I made the right decision at the right time.
How do they even know you downvoted? I was banned from a carnivore's communities once and can't say I'd ever even seen them. Claimed I was committing "systemic downvoting." Even if I had, how would they know? I started some tiny little communities on another instance, just to learn really, ~~and I have no such privied data available to me as a mod (at least not that I know of so far)~~. I should have posted that weirdo.
Public votes are probably the dumbest lemmy "feature", so much unnecessary drama because of it.
Home of the sh.itjust.works instance.