Answer: I am biased from reading through Turtles Ban thread, so I may not have the full picture. But for the most part BEFORE the major api protests they didn’t moderate. They more or less set themselves as Managers and managed the moderation teams. They built org charts (with themselves near the tops) to ensure a chain of command where if someone wasn’t being an active enough moderator, or disagreed with other moderation staff, they would remove and replace them. I imagine AFTER the api protests, some moderators were removed due to standing in Reddits way. Some, like turtle, could not stand to lose an ounce of Influence and began to seek ways to not lose their power - either by applying for moderator in places Reddit removed staff, and/or complying with Reddits general demands to break the protest.