I'll keep receiving upvotes, gladly. Also I don't think you should capitulate. They're targeting a lot of folks, and only if everyone capitulates will they have the capital to continue this. If folks do not capitulate, they will not profit from their behavior.
They are currently using their upvote power to upvote just a few folks, thereby operating their own upvote circle. I think their behavior cannot be sustainable long-term. Don't give up, please.
I saw your post above about SBI and remembered that I would visit lonely introduce yourself posts with almost no comments or upvotes, write a nice welcome to them, give my full upvote and gift them an SBI share as a way of welcoming them to Steemit.
I've also gifted STEEM to new members as well. It made them feel like a part of the family and hopefully, kept them on the platform.
They're not downvoting us to "fix" anything. They're doing it to shut Steemit down.
They even went so far as to downvote a homeless advocate:
https://steemit.com/polish/@tristancarax/re-mmmmkkkk311-q1qwrl
Their actions are causing people to leave in droves. I bring people into Steemit from my Twitter account. I just convinced a guy to come back, they began downvoting him, now he's gone for good. That's the effect they're having...
They want to shut it down.
Yep. Tristan's a friend. I don't think they're targeting anyone in particular. I don't think they're reading the posts. They just have an autovoter set to downvote anyone upvoted by SBI. They're wrong about what they're doing, and bless you for using SBI that way. I'm doing what I can, using SBI as contest prizes for SPUD and Punday Monday, and to help build support for projects like freewritehouse.
In solidarity, comrade.