I am a questioner. Asking questions can expose IF you are in a rigid authoritarian hierachical structure/system cause you will get ejected. MOST if not all online forums do this. They have mods who can eject you if you 'cause trouble'. They can (and I have seen this) provoke people, and break the rules, but have the power to 'disappear' you, and even though an 'ejected one' may get re-instated the very fact they can do this creates a climate of oppression over the forum, and people will begin to self-censorship. So these places are like little worlds reflecting the big one
First things I heard of Steemit was that there wasn't ANY censorship. But is your experience exposing this as a false claim?
HOW do you know Whales can hide the posts from all other users?
I am dead curious; what are you claiming was the colour of ancient human skin colour?
STEEM voting system works of votes/flag system. You can only vote or flag if you have enough STEEMpower and your power determines how much your vote with give in $. It's not whales in specific as I stated, but whales have undoubtedly the most steem power.