>What changed about the internet that made it start to become a common thing?
Some less retarded than average mod noticed that old trick and started using it, others followed.
>The first place I can remember doing it was Reddit for political wrong thinkers.
Despite what most of this thread seems to think, Reddit was far from the first site to do shadowbans: it was the first really big and succesful social network to clearly say they did them, but shadowbans were fairly popular even back when IRC was all the rage.
>>995270
>Clicking on a username, let alone typing something into the search field, is "doxing".
False, the issue is that admins can (and will) enforce additional/stricter rules only on some communities as they see fit, so they might decide that on a certain sub posting usernames is forbidden or shit like that.
>Clicking a link to another post on the same site is "brigading"
The admins don't even know what they mean by brigading, and the case you mentioned often doesn't qualify but sometimes does because fuck you.
Of course, brigading itself is such a bigger annoyance that nobody cares much about the fine details.