where Spez edited comments to make the sub seem to be inciting violence, so he had an excuse to ban it

Not what happened. Spez, fuckwit though he is, actually managed to do a halfway decent trolling there.

A bunch of t_d people were slagging him off and insulting him in their comments. Spez got drunk as shit one night and edited their comments, swapping his name with Trump's so that it made them look like a bunch of anti-trumpers. Much gnashing of teeth ensued.

Absolutely shouldn't have done it, especially as CEO of Reddit FFS, but definitely funny as shit.

Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely a mark against him, but he didn't get them banned. They thouroughly got themselves banned on their own.