Blizzard has had a Squelch system in game for MANY years to deal with gold spammers and such. Lots of reports would initiate a squelch until a GM could get to it. This was not widely known about outside of the CS forums and such.
In 2016 Blizzard rolled out the Silence system which replaced the full game suspensions for language infractions. A Silence is applied by a GM, stacks, and has more consequences.
Lots of reports puts something at the top of the GM review queue.
Asmon asked people to mass report a line of chat. He triggered the Squelch system.
THEN he got SUSPENDED totally from the game for abusing the report system.
He never actually got a Silence applied.
It is frustrating how people still misunderstand that even now.
Players can’t get you removed from the game or forums with reports alone. A Blizz staff member has to push that button. Not saying GMs don’t ever make mistakes in applying a Silence, but that part is not automated.