At the end of life on Steem I had attracted for no reason up to 40 downvotes at a time, I would have gracefully accepted this had there been one reason given.
Freedom to do a up/down vote is every ones right of choice except when it becomes abusive.
The new Hive system indicates when a person is prone to plagiarism or untoward behavior by @hivewatchers who are doing a sterling job.
Ugh! how annoying! Even if they don't take off much of the reward, or reputation, it's still very annoying to constantly get a stream of downvotes for no reason.