Reading that thread, the barrier to ban subreddits seems to be fairly high still. A subreddit apparently has to be pretty much centered on promoting violence in order to meet the criteria.
That said, had they chosen to go for a low barrier, flat-out "we'll ban everything we don't like" policy, the outcome might have been better in the long run. Short-term there would have been a huge outcry, but after these kinds of people left, the site would probably be more friendly overall. Smaller, but nicer.
Instead, they chose to go for a very modest policy change and what looks like reluctant enforcement.
> We define harassment as: Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.
This clearly has a lot of wiggle room for interpretation, but this pretty clearly seems to exclude e.g. "minor criticism."
[0] http://www.redditblog.com/2015/05/promote-ideas-protect-peop...
in today's world that means a platform where too many people disagree with me.
> When was reddit arbitrarily banning things they don't like?
When they banned five subreddits (actually quite a few more than that, but five were announced), without a clear policy that could be fairly enforced on all subs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/remov...
Point out vote brigades to the admins and they shadow ban users and the sub risks being banned.
Reddit should just release some charts of brigades from FPH and SRS.
The world relies on case law to resolve ambiguity