People only complain about downvotes because they lose money. If an abusive whale is flagging you just make another account and say whatever you want. I am not of the opinion that a grayed out post has stopped your freedom of speech, i mean someone just has to click it twice. Having your words deleted by regular social media sites is not the same as what happens here.

The way steemit was set up, requiring users to use their own vote power to flag spam, was a mistake. Someone with a ton of SP can spam at will and there isn't enough voting power to stop them like with what is happening with https://steemit.com/@animalcontrol which is also being shadow banned. I don't think Steemit planned to deal with bad actors on it's system. They did ban all those fake accounts that were trying to pretend to be well known accounts like blocktrade or builderwhale made by noganoo, every so often they ban shit and no one really talks about it.

I am of the opinion that allowing those 9-11 cyber extortionists on the platform sets a bad precedent. Should we allow people to post stolen credit card info, or other personal info? How far does free speech go?

A few years ago a post was made here that contravenes UK law by outing the current identity of the one of the killers of James Buldger, it went unnoticed but it puts the site in a bad spot. Leaving up information that violates a court publication ban could result in every UK Steemit user being denied access to the site.

There is more to consider on this topic than Murican chest thumping free speech. There are hate speech laws in the EU and every other English speaking nation. If this place becomes white supremist haven we could become inaccessible to lots of potential investors. The free speech crowd rarely invests....