Shadow banning _is_ censorship. It causes intellectual decline of a site because over time it reduces the audience to a synchronized minimum of wanted opinions like a communistic party.

The only answer for such a policy is boycott, and to convince also other visitors by verbal propaganda to boycott. There are so many sites in the Internet. We actually don't depend on Reddit and the like.

Everyone has an agenda. techrights.org has an agenda. Hacker news has an agenda (You think you can post whatever you want here and not get banned?).

But most are clear about them, not lying. Also, let's not forget when they called themselves a bastion of free speech, where people can come to share ideas.