Looking at that place now, it's crazy that people are still putting up with the bullshit. Everyone is getting censored/banned, comments removed, threads the admins don't like (especially anti Trump/Elon or pro-Palestine) get locked almost immediately. Reddit is literally bottom of the porta potty enshittified.
Reddit still has a lot of value for me, and I still see loads of critical comments almost every day tearing down certain topics & figures that you touch on above. If the censoring / banning were really that bad, I doubt I'd be able to read all that on a regular basis across their site.
What I learned after 12 years on reddit: the admins are Nazi sympathizers, pedo protectors, and propaganda enablers.
I think it's probably simpler than that: 1) they're a big social media site out to make money first and foremost, 2) they want to avoid agitating powerful figures of the day, and 3) they see their users moreso as convenient assets than individual voices who might stir up trouble for them. It's pretty much just the corporate model of the day in a late-stage capitalist reality.
My point here is that I'd rather not buy in to and perpetuate false assumptions and false narratives. I don't want to just assume that all their admins are really as bad as you think, when in reality many of them might just be trying to give users a fair shake. Many might in fact be 'resisting.'