When New World was... well, new, it had a problem with all the new players that were looking to explore its new world. It became such an issue that Amazon had to desperately scrounge up servers from its many thousands of servers, and it had to institute new AFK rules to kick players that were basically doing nothing but taking up space.
At first, the AFK detection scheme just kicked players that didn't provide input, but New World players quickly figured out that running into a wall would defeat it. Amazon had to get more creative with its AFK detection, amending it in the most recent update.
Amazon didn't say exactly what the new AFK rules are to avoid people deliberately finding ways around it, but the rules seem to require some amount of WASD input. Reddit user QuipOfTheTongue recently warned players that spending too long standing around and clicking your mouse just isn't enough anymore.
"I spend a lot of time at the Trading Post putting up sales, comparing prices and buying items," they wrote. "It's one of my favorite things to do in this game. Before this last update I spent a lot of time doing this and never had a problem. Just now I was kicked for "being AFK" even though I was actively clicking, posting items, etc. I hope this isn't a new thing the update has brought because this will be annoying."
Users were quick to point out that the same issue befalls fishing in New World too. It's widely suspected that the new AFK rules are designed to defeat bots, but if a player wants to take a step back from the normal gameplay loop and perform something more menial for a while, the AFK system thinks they're a bot and kicks them from the server.
New World is a new game from a relatively new studio, so we can forgive Amazon for needing to tune its AFK settings to better discern between bots and people. The lack of server swapping from the most recent update, and the infinite boss spawn bug, will likely need to be addressed a little more efficiently.