If the moderators had done their job in the response time that is appropriate for the protection of the community and to the standards of the site admin, who picked up the slack (since it’s their hardware and their legal risk, it’s pretty obvious that admins have the last say), and had worked from local accounts to avoid federation issues that were brought up, there would be no need for a move at all. so there is no “gray area” - the mods behind the move did not want to do the “work” of keeping a second browser with their local accounts open and check them regularly.

None of this excuses the way the responsible mods seem to think of their community - they are not cattle to be driven over to another ranch, it is not in their rights to uproot a community againt their will without communication.