These are called downvote trails and it's like upvote trails but reversed. One account downvotes and the other accounts are automated to follow. It doesn't necessarily mean multiple people are involved, you can make multiple accounts and do the same thing which makes it look like a mob. As for the account that triggered the downvote trail, probably best to ask about it and if they don't give you a response, well that's their move~
And if all rational explanation fails, you can just attribute it to someone disliking you without breaking any rules. I don't know. I don't speak for them. I don't know why it has to be rules broken that caused the downvotes. Can't people just trigger dislike/downvote because they have other reasons than rule breaking?
Hi @adamada.
I understand your positon and agree people have the right to dislike you of course. However, these accounts are clearly weaponizing when downvoting. The only reason for this is that downvoting, along with Hive Downvoting power has an impact on one's reputation and it becomes a weapon used to silence the individual they do not like. Forget the Hive Pools. @madam-ak is a completely irrelevant individual to the Hive Pools as 99% of the users that upvote her have no Hive Power. Most of her earnings come in the form of SME which is not effected by these individuals that are downvoting her anyways.
If someone didn't like her posts, and her reputation wasn't affected by the downvote, it wouldn't be a weapon to silence her and i wouldn't see a problem at all with it, as only her Hive earnings would be effected which are not much at all anyways. But since those downvotes do have an impact on someone's reputation, they become a weapon. I don't know where you live, but me, being a United States Citizen, i have a first amendment right to bear arms. That however does not mean my rights are extended to just shooting up everyone i dislike to silence them. No man, no problem as Stalin said is not how things work in an economy where the individual is empowered rather than the collective. This person or group collective are being abusive as they know they can silence her by consistently downvoting her.
When madam's reputation was affected by the downvotes, what was affected? the digits or her actual reputation as a person? was she less of herself when you saw her account got -1 to -5 or will she be even lesser at -15? the numbers changed, but the person's good standing in the community (if she has that reputation) are not affected. I don't know how serious this matter is at your end but these things shouldn't be taken seriously. Like, does an account with 5 reputation here be less than a rep of 65? what's the difference? digits that don't matter and validation by numbers I guess. It just shows they get support from people staked.
What about freedom of speech and silencing them? this isn't twitter, facebook, or other centralized platforms, if you reblog and make her posts visible, I'll see them still if I follow you on my feed. Shadow bans here don't count for anything, you can get -20 rep and still be annoying and the silence you're talking about is just one click to view post away, then there's other frontends that can still access her content even if one isn't available.
Sounds like a privileged 1st world problem to me. Where I'm from, I constantly wish dislikes and downvotes are the only things I have to worry about for speaking up, but instead there's media slander, death threats, and online to digital harassment will entail if I got well opinionated about a public issue.
Despite how much freedom of speech threat the Western culture has been reeeing online, from my point of view, you still have it easy than being vocal here where getting a lead to the head without any resolution for decades is the norm. I'm sorry, I just don't see it as grave as you but I'm not discounting that this problem is serious and real from where you're at.
If it bothers her mental health, maybe stepping out from Hive, which embraces the toxic parts of decentralization along with its good is not the best place to promote her stuff. Everyone will eventually encounter this problem if they want to embrace web3 as part of the freedom of speech.
If a group were downvoting me without any records of public disagreements, just sporadic downvoting from out of nowhere, no explanations provided whatsoever, does that do the downvoters a favor? 3rd party eyes would just see accounts downvoting it without a reason. It's not giving the downvoters any good and it just looks like madam is minding their own business.
For your case, it doesn't as there's no monetary incentive to take out from your posts but for others that belong under the category of spam/plagiarized content and sometimes content I just don't like being rewarded, there's an incentive for me to chip off a few cents off it.
I wouldn't see your content unless I go actively look for it or someone handed it to me by reblogging on their feed. Whether you have a high rep or negative rep, it's visible.
I don't represent anyone, just my take. If Hive is just causing me headaches, I see no point in engaging with it. You can have a group of people downvoting but there are individual reasons, don't lump mine with anyone else.
That's your opinion on how I use my stake AND my time. Assuming I blindly trust the downvoter is another flaw here, Galenk messages me or I check what's with the drama whenever my name gets mentioned/tagged or dm'ed. It goes the same for people I set to follow their downvotes. If I don't agree with the call, I just remove the downvote and move on or remove them from my trail. I Indulge in a conversation like this when there's a discussion or avoid it when someone already says what's on my mind.
I don't know, did my time and also other people stepped out of the platform some time whenever Hive's toxicity or crypto space toxicity disrupted their fun. If this is the kind of thing people want to be in, so be it.
Made a reply to grey above that tackle on some points.
Automated to follow upvotes because I don't have time to curate content and want the rewards for my staked Hive, this is for automated upvote trails. For automated downvote trails, there are curators I trust that use their stake to downvote posts that spam or plagiarize or do something stupid so my stake gets used in support of their call because I don't have the time to be present for all dramas.
Only know for sure when they actually reason for whatever cause they're trying to run you off for. Digital rep on the blockchain doesn't do much here. An account with 43 rep is less credible than an 65 rep account? Just saying some digits don't matter.