Steemit needs to add a bot that can detect if you're abusing the down voting system. The down vote tool is for spam, copy/paste stuff, plagiarism etc or at least give authors a tool to have the post reviewed, and if nothing is wrong with your post, they take the downvote away and it goes against the person who flagged you.

Hi @johnsmith. I am relatively new to the platform. I've been around for few weeks. Write from the beginning I saw that censorship was taking place, and that is of great concern for the value embedded in this platform. I wrote [a post](https://steemit.com/steem/@borges.barilla/steemit-new-addicted-user-first-impressions) about it -as a fresh user- trying to get comments that would guide me to a better understanding.

The main point is that writer are getting flagged not because of abuse (like sexism, xenophobia, racism etc...) but simple because some whale (with lots of SteemPower) decided " I don't like this post "  Then "BOOM!" 

(using the same words of the down-voter, who left a trolling comment, just make things worst)  

Another example, [here we have the link to a writer who is discussing about the down-voting issue](https://steemit.com/steem/@jerrybanfield/why-is-the-steem-price-low-how-do-we-fix-it) . He makes no abusive comment. He is just discussing an idea. But still, abusive flags made his post desapear. 

This is censorship, and can not go that way. This platform is clearly loosing potential if this keeps going that way.

I think this idea has merit.   Though I have two accounts, and many people have more than that.   I am also @chaospoet.   So I could use @chaospoet to ratify my down vote.   What then?

informative and also nice picture selection  welxome to my blog @farhannaqvi7

johnsmith why you are not online now a days

Nice post! But what if someone said something controversial and there was a mob outrage (happens alot) and hundeds of people report you on simply because the disagree. I caught myself disliking because I disagreed on youtube so whats to stop others doing it here - in masses?

This is a great idea! I'm just wondering why something like this hasn't been implemented yet...

Upvoting just for the original thought and the entertaining article.
I truly doubt it would have an effect, though. Have you seen the jerks lately advertising to upvote/downvote anything you want with their 800 (their claim, not my exaggerating) accounts?

@johnsmith, great appreciation, like always.

I think than also may be a good idea, some button like *"report"*, after you press it, the system will froze the payment for the revisation in the content... I´m no sure if this may be anothe solution, but I think that it may work.

Nice to post you again bro!

@johnsmith  i receive downvotes to all me post not only this one  https://steemit.com/gold/@jennyferandtony/gold-coin-90-years-since-the-publication-of-craiis-novel-of-the-old-courtyard from @abbak7 and no comment "Downvotes don't count unless they are accompanied by a comment explaining the downvote and that comment has been upvoted by someone that is not the downvoter. "

Well, I haven't seen a downvote yet.  I guess I'll have to go looking so I can see the whole 'comment to approve the downvote' thing.

Good idea.  I guess it's too late to upvote, so I thought I'd at least leave a comment.

as of the time of my commenting... no flags yet!
Lets hope it stays that way? please

Yeah, many accounts are abusing it... I got downvoted once from a whale because I had a referral code/discount code in my post (which I explicitly explained in the post), bringing my post rewards from ~$5 to $0.00 and decreasing my reputation as well. Good post!

I am in quite a dilemma right now.. I went ahead and decided that enough was enough with plagiarising posts, so I took the liberty to downvote/report/flag two posts that were legit copy/paste. Minutes later I find myself being downvoted on all my posts.. Which are not only original, but also very time consuming to write since I'm writing educational posts about artificial intelligence for the most part. Any idea how I can stop the person who got mad from ruining my account?

Sounds like a great idea!

I've recently encountered a sociopath on Steemit who has only earned maybe 1% of his power, and bought the rest. He seems to have some kind of anti-social behavioral disorder and we got in a disagreement about precision of language, and unfortunately he managed to get under my skin. In the end, he down-voted, and buried, every single response removing my ability to have a say. My reputation is higher, but his capital is higher, he wins. *Considering the majority of billionaires are verifiable sociopaths, when a network is controlled by money, then the network has a high probability of being controlled by sociopaths*

I'll probably never down vote anyone unless it's very harmful or something serious 😀

http://i.imgsafe.org/43deca87c8.gif
I agree, good article up-voted. However, I wrote a blog on here explaining why we need a "down vote" button and not just a "flag" button. The flag should be used for stuff like spam, and plagiarized material and should be reviewed because the flags can censor images and content. The non existent "down vote button" could allow someone to be voted down without censoring the content. The problem is a "whale" could flag and censor a bunch of minnows just because they disagree philosophically on some issue. I explain this idea in my full article: https://steemit.com/steemit/@titusfrost/false-flagging-need-a-down-vote-button-stop-censorship

It's not the ability to downvote that has be concerned about this platform, its more of the whales that like an article, and they push it to the top so everyone will read it... 
I just joined last week, but saw a whale push up a welcome from a guy in Brazil growing his own weed... So his 'welcome' was a lot more 'welcomed'...