So, if 5+ people that I follow reported you, you don't show up in my feed. But you still show up in everybody else's feed. It's not just any random 5 people. It must be 5 from the list that each user follows.

So, in a way, if you report someone, you are helping to protect your followers from that person's content. Your report alone will do nothing, but if 5 others that your followers follow agree, then this is hidden by default.

You can always disable the filter in the security setting. But this simple rule has been quite good to remove stuff people don't want to see, like scammers, impersonators and dick picks.