I’m still worried that it would be used as a disagreement mechanic, rather than a reward control mechanic.
Example here is that someone with a huge amount of voting weight comes in, disagrees with the politics of David’s videos and decides to make it a bit of a personal challenge to see that they are downvoted.
well yeah - that's certainly a concern.
Fact of the matter is - SteemIt is largely self moderated. So if you post crap - there's nobody aroudn to clean up the mess - and it's up to the users to vote/flag.
But you're right - even now - there's an issue where it doesn't pay to post controversial content - the platform is more or less censored, even if not by design, or by intent.
For example, if some of the whales have strong opinions towards a particular inclination, they can drown out any alternate views.