I guess some people use power to repress speech.
(removing earned votes and then taken away arbitrarily)
As a point, I've never down voted a single comment on my posts - or anyone elses blog either - except for plagiarism with my own post! lol
(and in retaliation of the down vote flag , of course)
If free speech is altered through monetary pressure, its not really as free as advertised.
It naive to think 95% of people on here, are not here because of some degree of monetary incentive.
That being the case, that means free speech can be controlled to a degree, by money - if you don't have the luxury of not worrying about it..
I.e An identical paradigm to what it's like in 'real life'.
(and thus not really the paradigm that steemit is being presented as.
It's no different than what the real world offers to 'smaller' people, and a chance to express their truth...not if you are being financially hammered for expressing it!)
Flags are part of the disagreement system here whether used well or not.
Disagreeing by not upvoting, is also an action.
I've had many a discussion on this.
Negative actions against an individual is not libertarian - and is an aggressive action in my opinion.
Violating the NAP.
Positive actions are freedom orientated actions.
Vote up, and leave the unvoted, behind...imo
There is no possibility of free speech by anyone in this world if they feel they have anything at all to lose, whether it be money, friends, status or life. True freedom of speech is for the enlightened or the insane.