The answer is YES. The system was build to give every stakeholder the chance to do downvotes just like they do upvotes, with its own downvote-power based on Hive Power and the ability to reduce or even cancel any already upvoted (or even non-upvoted) content. There are plenty of good reasons for that and plenty that have shown over and over again that it can also be abused in many ways. This discussion is as old as STEEM HIVE.
In this particular case, the downvoters might argue, that too much of the reward pool was awarded towards @krnel and they wanted to use their downvote-power to free more of the rewards for others. Whatever their reasoning might be, it was only detrimental to Krnel and his/her upvoters (because they lost out on some of their curation rewards. Everyone else got more of the pie.
This doesn't mean that I am in favor of any of those downvotes, as I am merely trying to explain the dynamics.
Ok now I understand the system better. Thanks for the explanation colleague @flauwy
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