despite appearances i'm a very casual HN reader and all this talk of shadowbanning makes me kinda nervous tbh. hope i havent done anything to displease the powers that be.

You are fine. New people with low karma are most at risk. Once you are a little established, you have to do something very upsetting to get shadowbanned, or be consistently unpleasant. Once established, a few controversial posts with negative karma should not be a problem.

Avoid criticizing HN staff or related companies. Gentle / kind disagreement is fine, but err on the side of keeping it private.