HN's hellbans aren't real shadowbans, because other users can see them. They just have to opt-in to seeing potentially offensive content (it's a setting in your profile). Other users can even make banned users' posts visible to everyone!

And when they pin comments, it's pretty obvious. dang often points it out: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

YC isn't trustworthy, sure, but HN is.