Hive uses content surfacing algorithm to determine which content to display in Trending and Hot. While many people consider the content on the front page to be irrelevant, the same algorithm is used within community pages, with exception that community moderators can pin content they consider more relevant.
The surfacing algorithm is based on time-weighted value of votes received. Upvotes are what determines which page content appears in Trending and Hot pages within communities. Tell me again how an upvote isn't curation?

It's your opinion that upvoting is not 'good' curation, and I'm not in disagreement there. People upvote for lots of different reasons, on lots of different quality levels of content. But when the upvote is at the heart of one of the most important algorithms that is used for content discovery, an upvote is absolutely curation.