Buzzfeed does some really fine reporting. But this doesn't seem to be a good example.

There are users here who do some really fine commenting. But they got "deaded" for one reason or another. I would love to see buzzfeed and similar sites punished for their wrongdoings even if sometimes they might provide something good. The worse clearly overweighs the good to me.

Is the existing voting system so broken that we need to resort to heavy handed tactics like that?

I'm not sure I'm a fan of shadowbanning people either, except in really exceptional situations.