> The majority of the down votes I have seen are for disagreement, and not for the quality of the post.

It often looks like there is no other explanation than mere dislike or disagreement, which is unfair and calls for improvement. My policy: never downvote any post, and on the contrary, upvote posts that are contrary to my views but have merit and thus are worthy of consideration.

I wish there were better ways to highlight thought-provoking posts, yet moderation is essential. A popular voting system is better than nothing.

Let's compare this with the ability to block people on Twitter just because they disagree with you. That's stupid and not conducive to having a discussion—but then again, this wasn't the point of Twitter in the first place. At the same time, this is also a blessing for people who want to avoid negativity.

In the long run, ignoring problems doesn't make them disappear. Suppressing exposure to bad ideas also comes at the cost of blocking the unpopular good ones.

Blocking on Twitter is a necessary minimum to avoid the abuse and death threats. You can't have a discussion there because (unlike HN) there's no strong pressure to basic civility.

Mere opinion is not very valuable. If you want to post something that goes against the grain and actually convince people, you have to tailor it to the audience.

But then it's not your opinion, but just a statement to appease the audience.

True. The reason is that voting and downvoting semantic is perceived differently, and people’s ego. The easiest, although imperfect, solution I think would be that downvoting costs you some karma (both the downvotee and the downvoter).

> downvoting costs you some karma

Gab had implemented that early on, but currently I believe they eliminated down voting altogether.