Do you think it's better to have accounts like bloom, who do nothing but downvote?
Better than Forcing them to post every so often simply so they can downvote, yes, and I am sure that had you seriously thought and considered what you suggested you'd agree with me.
And since they never post, they can act with impunity?
You somehow think that they cannot act with impunity EVEN if they post, every single day, hour, minute or second?
Let's just say, hypothetically, that the Chinese Censorship Brigade decided they wanted to create an account (or buy an existing account) with (a relatively small) 2 million steem-power and start obliterating any accounts they didn't like (anything not written in Chinese).
And since this account makes zero posts, they cannot be downvoted themselves.
So you think that such an account would, idk, hilarity hold your horses... They would stop or change at all if they could be downvoted? Why do I have to seemingly be the only one who actually considers what you write because surely had you considered it, you wouldn't have made such a horrible oversight: that downvoting won't stop Downvoting, and neither will it change anything were they required to jump through some hoops to be able to downvote like that.
Would you consider that a "problem" or would you stand by your, "downvotes are freespeech" credo?
I consider, period. Try it sometimes.
Thanks for telling me what I think. Please explain WHY you think that. What's the "problem" with requiring an active post (or comment) as a prerequisite for upvoting/downvoting?
Accounts with high-rep can downvote anyone with lower rep than them below (0) which automatically hides all their posts and comments and breaks any links to their posts and comments.
If a rogue account had an active post, at least there would be a chance that a higher-rep account could take action to reduce their rep, thus mitigating the amount of damage they could wreak by reducing the number of accounts they could de facto censor wholesale.
Yes, even if they were ranked below (0) they could still wipe out rewards on individual posts and or comments, but they couldn't wipe out ENTIRE ACCOUNTS.
Broken link to illustrate,
https://steemit.com/steem/@bewarecenterbase/6ctepz-steem-freedom-downvote-downvoting-manslaughterers-v-8-0-1-strategy-news-and-list
Broken links to replies (-4rep) that don't show on my replies feed,
IMAGE SOURCE
For example, https://steemit.com/steemit/@logiczombie/q5p0k8
Doesn't show stopthemarkymarks comment at all, not behind a click through "show comment" or anything.
And if you view the comment from stopthemarkymark's replies page, the link is broken,
For example,
https://steemit.com/steemit/@stopthemarkymark/re-q5p0k8-20200214t153241
Ok, I really should switch over to steempeak...
Getting downvoted by an account with lower rep than you does not affect your rep.
Getting downvoted by an account with higher rep than you KILLS your rep.
By forcing an active post, the downvoters could potentially be downvoted by a higher-rep account, and thus lose their rep, which would take away their ability to KILL other people's rep.