I really haven't noticed much down voting. I am not sure it is used that heavily other than with potentially offensive posts and such that could drastically limit the audience that can use steemit.
I saw one get down voted a couple of days ago that was basically full on animated gif porn. I would expect to see things like that down voted.
I don't really see much in the way of censorship here yet other than something obvious like that.
At this point that is kind of a non-issue. I think the flag for down voting is more used to REPORT possible problematic posts.
OH I did see another down voted yesterday. Someone blatantly stole the post of another steemit author copy and pasted it and reposted it themselves.
Yea that copying and pasting happens a lot but some I don't understand why, this post I made https://steemit.com/steemit/@bjones/why-it-pays-to-comment-helping-you-with-incentives was positive and I followed all the proper procedures but it got down voted in the first 5 min
Are you sure it was downvoted.... Those values change as the value of STEEM as a currency fluctuates. Depending upon when it happened the currency could have just been in a dip.
I wanted to give you an update.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@dwinblood/just-one-more-click-just-one-more-reply-just-one-more
That post of mine was above $6 a little while ago and I just saw it almost $1 lower.
This is not due to down votes. It is due to the changing value of the steem currency on the markets.
At least that seems the most likely. So if that is what you were reacting to. No one down voted you. My vote count is still 20 like it was when it was worth $1 more than it is now.