@joeyarnoldvn Flagging (or soft-censorship) on Steemit allows people who have amassed large amounts of Steem to nullify the votes of dozens if not hundreds of other users, and change a posts potential rewards from:
$X ← to → $0.
It also simultaneously causes the flagged post to be hidden (or dithered out). If you've ever run across a post that says click to reveal, it means that post has either been downvoted, flagged, or soft-censored.
With respect to the element in flagging that hides the post from view, it's closest real-world parallel is censorship. With respect to potential rewards being diverted, there are various parallels.
Capitalism might be one of those parallels depending on how you choose to view it. Steemit can be viewed in many different ways. A casino gulag, a business, a social networking platform, a way to receive value in exchange for posting user content, or a way to troll people with your whamhammer like some devs choose to do.
I would recommend reading the updated white paper, it's a curious experiment, what I found particularly interesting was the last paragraph of page 16.
Image via Freedom Feens
"The fact that everyone "wins something" plays on the same psychology that casinos use to keep people gambling. In other words, small rewards help reinforce the idea that it is possible to earn bigger rewards." – SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Ex-FaceBook President Admits Facebook Exploits a Human Vulnerability
If it were censorship, nobody could see it any more. Your claims are total bullshit. But you may consider yourself lucky that you obviously don't have the slightest idea what censorship is.
very nice post
Capitalism is exchange. Capitalism is a casino. I like voting. I do not down vote because I think it is better to reward, to focus on grace, on what I like. I guess people can down vote too but it is dangerous to go down that path. Is down voting part of capitalism? Not sure about that. I upvote. I comment and share. I may never down vote and flag for a lot of reasons.
I'm closer to your view @Joeyanoldvn I don't flag much. I did flag phishing scams.
Lovely.
It also costs them to exercise that power... sounds fair to me.
Steemit's plan would work, except people realise (after a few months) that you need money to gain popularity.