I'm not friends with the staff here. I don't even know the staff here, and I have heavily criticized this website while I did have friends on staff. I literally stopped going to this site over a MINOR dispute with staff policy once. I've outright told Vek to his face-- er well screen, that I don't like him or trust him once. If anyone knows me, they know I'm not the sort of person to to give a fuck about friendships, dick sucking, and pussy licking when it comes to me speaking my mind and expressing my opinions.
This site has NEVER operated like the OP claims. If it were true, then some staff member, or friends of a staff member, who hasn't liked me would have gotten me banned. In fact, someone has tried to get me banned in the past. Staff came at me hard after someone doctored some PMs trying to make me look like some kind of harassment harry. I explained it not to be true, revealed what was going on, and staff handled it well. Granted, this was many years ago, and I'm pretty sure none of that staff are currently here. I've also been publicly ridiculed on the Official BMR Podcast back when it was a thing. I've never been popular here, and people have had reasons to try to get rid of me. While none of this speaks to the current staff, it does speak to the long history of this site having pretty good moderation.