We've always had these whale wars, flag wars, downvote-happy whales, and at least some communities of folks on Steem/Hive that are very much anti-free speech, and only care about their own stake investments. For a long time, they didn't seem to go so hog wild with their flagging of content...

But now those folks are all bought into the Cult of COVID, and one of the primary tenets of the cult is it's similarity to The Inquisition. For those drinking Bill Gates' kool-aid, the most important thing to do is to attack and attempt to silence all "blasphemers."

They're generally completely unwilling to discuss or defend their beliefs/statements, because to do so would be to allow blasphemy into their own minds, and then they'd risk being canceled or called a "conspiracy theorist" as well.

I think we're getting ever closer to a need for something like Hive, but launched fresh, and truly dedicated to Freedom & Truth - with the proof of Stake end of things turned WAY down, and some basic shared goals/ideas/principles. Been chatting with folks about creating something for quite a while now, but the dev side has yet to appear at all.