Oh absolutely, they use this marginalization of any free-speech supporting subs.  They call them "toxic" because they allow the bad behavior, then use that as an excuse to ban mention/advocacy of said subs making the circle jerk even worse. /r/POLITIC managed to avoid this marginalization by having a bot keep the content flowing; but they just silently ignored it rather than directly attack it in that case. If they were truly concerned about the quality of their own subs they would have every reason to direct people who aren't happy with their moderation practices to subreddits more to their liking.