Technically, downvoting is supposed to be used in a community on comments which don't add anything to the conversation, but of course this is abused to simply s

Technically, downvoting is supposed to be used in a community on comments which don't add anything to the conversation, but of course this is abused to simply squash differing opinions. The key difference is downvotes don't come from a central authority, they come from the crowd. Not good or ideal, but different.