Every story has 3 sides, as the saying goes. Dunno what was the original reason to this tug of war between the two, the OP and the admin, but if the OP's side is the one closer to the truth, and adding your comment, it reminds me of a few instances where administration has all the devices to become power-tripping, just waiting for the right catalyst.

And about "the largest Mastodon instance", if it is the one I'm thinking about, not the first user I see someone being banned from there for diverging opinions.

Luckily, at least, decentralized governance allows finding alternatives, or even making them. And widespread adoption of RSS allows following the contents of communities run by power-tripping folks, if the person is willing to endure that.

Though, using the Mastodon example, always worth keeping an eye for instances that are growing too much, for then you have to bend to their visions to avoid ostracization, and by extension such instances weakening decentralization, free speech, and all that.

I’ve earned a lifelong shadowban on the largest Mastodon instance just because I doubted a political paper (which later turned out to be as unsubstantial as I said it would be).

Wanna expand on that?