Thanks for your comment @biasnarrative. I do understand that downvoting was built into the Steem blockchain. However, the collapsing of flagged posts, and hiding of posts, and dithering effects that Steemit has added as a destructive flourish can be perceived as a form of soft-censorship. I think just as Steemit has chosen to add those things, they can simply remove those after effects of flagging.

Then all they would need to do is come up with a more reasonable solution to handle spam. People don't like it when they put allot of time and effort into a post only to see it dithered out and hidden on the Steemit UI. It connotes a strong feeling that they've been censored by another Steemian. In reality on the blockchain they haven't, but on Steemit it's a different story.

Steemit can really do the right thing if they wanted to, and make this platform a much more positive place.

My suggestions are to:

• Stop hiding, and dithering flagged posts, unless they are truly spam.

I do have one more suggestion which is a bit radical, but it might prove to be an interesting experiment. Even if it was only done as a trial-run.

• Remove the ability for users to flag posts on Steemit, and if they want to downvote, let them do it from a different UI.

The benefits to this kind of thing would be that Steemit could be percieved as a platform that doesn't discourage the free flow of diverse ideas.

Also, if the post has been downvoted to 0.00 on another UI maybe Steemit could show how heavy it was downvoted in sbd and maybe show a little flag icon, so that people know it was flagged and can choose to counter it, if they please.

I think Steemit could become a much more powerful community if it's users weren't attacking each other in flag wars. All we're doing is holding each other back with that kind of nonsense. If this experiment worked on Steemit, maybe other UI's like d.tube and the like would follow suit.

I don't know how radical the implications of these changes would be, but the whole thing is an experiment anyhow. I say why not try something to create more community unity. I feel like the design of this UI is almost setup to try and create an internet civil war or something. It comes off as very divisive.

Are those ideas unreasonable, if so could you explain why? I'm still learning, and love the Steemit platform, I just think that it has the potential to be better, and lead the way by setting a good example for all the other UI's.