My spouse and I are avid watchers of the series and we have been hypothesizing on and off why 1-2 game participants get almost no screen time whatsoever each series. Originally we thought it might simply be that the people in question make boring television. This is another possibility we had not even entertained - that the producers were punishing people for meta-gaming.

Based on my knowledge of the show and commentary around its filming, it does seem genuinely mostly unscripted - which means that producers are probably reaching for other mechanisms to control dialogue and contestant behavior and probably threatening screen time for breaking the 4th wall is an effective one.