CE is just the first step of closing all social boards.
So why CE?
Multiple reasons.
It is one of the fastest social boards. From Fandoms point of view, it would be better if that traffic was used on a gaming board instead.
We have had some active Trump/Biden topics in the past. From Fandoms point of view, that is politic. They dont want politic.
When 261 closed, CE got invaded by angry 261ers. It was so bad so SBAllen raised the karma requirement (at the moment) temporary. From Fandoms point of view, we are basically one step away from turning into 261 2.0. They dont want politic.
Closing all social boards at the same time will cause lots of trouble. DToast got himself doxxed after posting his informative introduction, they remember the extra work when 261 closed, and he is probably tired of getting contacted by the Reddit Echo Chamber. They are most likely afraid that it will get worse if they cut all the social boards at the same time.
So they start with the big troublesome CE as an experiment.
So,CE likes politics? Alright, let them keep their politics. We close them off and hide them. No new users can access them. Many of their regulars gets purged from time to time, let them lose access to CE the next time they get purged, as punishment. It wont take long until the traffic dies down and they start posting somewhere else on the site.
Once the traffic slows down enough, or enough time have passed, they will claim that the CE experiment failed.
The users went somewhere else. And since we dont allow politics, we will close the political board CE.
Then they will start to target the other social boards based on what they learned from the CE experiment. I can see them starting with the religion boards, saying that religion can be pretty political, especially with the Israel war, or its aftermatch.