I think censorship, down voting and manipulations exists in steemit too and it may even be increasing. I hear people complaining that whales are flagging  posts because  they disagree with the post or believe that the post should not earn so much.  This trend saddens me a lot as I thought Steem  promised self censorship and not censorship by a group of whales. If they don't like someone's posts or comments they can just mute him. The flagging system  should be removed otherwise we will just be another centralised social media platform where posts, comments  and opinions that don't please the rulers will be censored and downvoted.