I think this was always an intended feature (I’ve certainly been hearing about it for years as something people want/devs want to add), in addition to a user tagging system (i.e. users adding tags to their own usernames (e.g. pronoun tags). the main difference, though, was that it was something the poster or mods/admins could add and not something for the userbase at large to vote on. I think making it a voting system allows abuse. like consider a large group of transphobes adding tags to posts in trans comms, for instance.
a trusted user system is it’s own can of worms.
idk, I just know that the old instance already have problems with power users and reifying that will make the problem worse.