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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.
So if I'm a part of a community, I should only upvote and never downvote? You want echo chambers, got it.
Well that broadly depends on the communities policy. Mostly communities will ban people outside of the community, ie lurking and looking in for the mass downvoting all content on the community.