Q: What is being done, or what can be done, to keep whales (or anybody with more clout) from nuking accounts on a whip (for instance..'I don't like what you wrote I think it devalues steemit so I'm going to downvote you into oblivion'.

Steemit has no protections from nor recourse for this.

Mass adoption won't happen when content producers see how risky it is to put in time/effort/$ and have some douchebag nuke their account.