That isn't the reality of moderation. Often moderation effectively acts as a form of censorship, and the two work together. Often moderators either power trip or misunderstand the situation and allow bad actors to abuse the rules to their advantage to have people shut out of the group.

This happens, btw, when there are the most rules and heavy-handed moderation. Places that are less moderated, this rarely happens because people will directly call this behaviour out and the moderators are only intervening on important stuff, e.g., threats of violence, illegal material, etc.