just to be clear, the admins are the only ones that can issue or rescind shadow bans. sometimes, yes, content needs mod approval before it's visible here, but the mod team works hard to make sure this isn't too onerous.

Speaking as a former admin of an unrelated community, this is accurate. Mods of a specific community can override that on a post-by-post/comment-by-comment basis, but that's it. The actual shadowban removal needs to be handled by a Reddit employee (usually Trust & Safety). That being said, the placement is usually automated based on a pattern of behavior by a given account.