Thank you so much, dang. I'm completely with you 110% that just throwing accusations this way is bad, and that it's also most likely a "I couldn't disagree more

Thank you so much, dang. I'm completely with you 110% that just throwing accusations this way is bad, and that it's also most likely a "I couldn't disagree more" leading people to a wrong conclusion about shilling and such. What about the other side of it though? your reply didn't really address it. What I feel is happening now is that in those situations (and others), people downvote and flag things that they don't agree with. They're not shouting "shills / astroturfing" yet the collective power makes it easy to silence opposing opinions, especially if those opinions are in a minority. Completely anecdotal, but I reported to you two cases of flagged stories that in my opinion had value in them for the community (and in the discussions around them). Those stories were effectively silenced. I think it's a shame. There's no evidence require to flag or downvote, there's no requirement to even give an argument/reasoning for doing it. Are there any plans to tackle this kind of behaviour in a similar way that empty/non-evidence-based claims of astroturfing and shilling is dealt with?