I ve gotten banned for reporting violent content, and also for inciting violence the same month, the ban for reports was something very stupid like harassing mods, person I reported was just straight up advocating for violence, while me advocating for violence was "I dont think h1b visas help americans, college grads are already struggling to get relevant jobs, one thing I agree with some conservatives on" (in the conservative sub, funny enough most of them were against it day 1, by day 2 they were all for it on that sub, think trump had also said his support by then)
It still drives engagement. Same for the subs that have been flooded with AI stories and bot responses. It can be marketed as engagement to advertisers.
I reckon it's more that they need to be 'seen' to be doing something about it, but will nonetheless take the engagement as long as it doesn't cause a stir. I mean they had jailbait and watchpeopledie as large subreddits for ages... until they started getting flack for it.