Thanks for explaining that.
Just for clarity: If the name were changed from "flag" to "downvote", wouldn't this project still be necessary to protect people who were being downvoted solely based on someone (especially people with high steem power) not liking what they had to say?
Whether its called a flag or a downvote makes no difference at all..
Downvotes, flags, whatever you like to call them - they cannot take anything away from you, and they cannot silence any post that you make, and they cannot impede your future ability to make posts.
There is no need for "protection" from them.
Good point. Whether or not it's conceptualized as a flag or more accurately as a downvote, this account and project isn't necessary but it could serve a useful function for sure, and it is playing the same opinion-based curation game as the downvoter.
I appreciate you responding. What would another way to counteract opinion downvoting be? I'm asking because I am a bit afraid about my future of this site, if Steemit does end up growing a lot, which I think it will.
I have a lot of issues close to my heart that I post about, and know they are hot topics on the other social media sites I'm on because they are not mainstream points of view (Freeing Palestine for one...). While on those sites, all I deal with is trolling in the comments of my posts, here I would have to worry about losing my reputation and earnings as well.
The people and organizations I speak out against are powerful, and would easily be able to buy a tonne of SP here and use it to silence my voice and others like mine. Whereas I don't have much money, and have had to earn all the SP I have.
So how else can I/We stop paid shills/agents from silencing our voices here on Steemit?
These are exactly my concerns as well. @freezepeach addresses a symptom of a deeper problem, and it may prove to be sufficient for a time, but ultimately I think this is something that needs to be dealt with in the code itself. How that happens is anyone's guess, so while that's being debated, I'll be here to do what I can.