![hive flag.gif](https://images.hive.blog/DQmXAVe56jm7TotRdiNaDp2PeL875dyM8m948bit6hfkptM/hive%20flag.gif)


Hi everyone! I recently posted about a serious problem we have on Hive in the following article:
https://hive.blog/hive/@joshsigurdson/thanks-for-the-downvotes

I want to make it clear that I'm not against being downvoted, but when there are people like "altleft" going around mass downvoting every post by 90% or so despite 99% of people voting to support the post, that is no longer "free market competition." That is just abuse. Targeted abuse. 

Imagine thinking if you have more money than others, you can undo what 99% of people agree to. Don't like their politics? Make sure they can't make a living! 

I've been trying to get my viewers (I reach about 1 million a week) to join Hive and support not only the blog, but the currency. Then they come on and they end up leaving as they feel like they're witnessing censorship when they see some guy with a million dollars obliterating any value someone might make on a post. I feel this is detrimental. I mean... It's OBVIOUSLY detrimental. 

In the past, when I bring this up to the community, people say "there's nothing wrong with people downvoting you, that's decentralization." Yes, of course. But to say there's nothing wrong with one rich person obliterating the funds of 100 people who all support a certain blogger is insane and hurts the community. 

Why can I not block someone who is abusive towards the Hive community? Can this be a function in the future?

I literally post a scientific study by Yale and Johns Hopkins backing up my claims and this "altleft" guy of course doesn't need to argue. He will just downvote me to almost nothing and walk away.

The free market is individual demand. Not Bill Gates coming in and purging anyone who disagrees with him. Or in this case some guy with more money telling us peasants that we're all wrong and only he is right because he has money. 

This was a problem many years ago on Steemit and it lead to thousands of people leaving the platform. I don't want centralization, but I wouldn't mind the ability to block people and deny association as a free human being. That's not centralization, that's individual defense against an abusive entity. 

Something to think about...