Why I like saidit. It doesn't have downvotes, and that is pro free-speech. When you have downvotes that discourages people from speaking up. We don't need downvotes. If someone says something dumb here, then it just won't rise up, and that's enough. There doesn't need to be double punishment.

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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

don't see how downvotes are against free speech

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't think down-votes inherently are against free speech, but they can be used as a tool to censor speech. On Reddit, people would down-vote comments that spoke the truth (that they didn't like, or was against the narrative), into oblivion. This pushed the information all the way down and prevented others from seeing it, and studies have also been conducted showing how the first few votes on a post matter - if the first few votes on a post or comment are negative, the next user to come across it is more likely to down-vote it without even reading according to the studies that were done.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a9335/upvotes-downvotes-and-the-science-of-the-reddit-hivemind-15784871/

In this sense, people can use down-votes nefariously as a tool for censorship and creating an echo-chamber.