It IS freedom of speech and unmutable (at least by others). The data is impossible to hide for others. On one can stop information from being spread.

Demonitization is also the wrong word because according to the code the money number next to the post is entirely hypothetical and does not belong to you until the point of payout.

People who downvote loose the equal power for upvoting. It is their right as shareholders to decide whether they disagree on the amoun of payout.

The argument, that a big company or even government could buy into Steem to censor a post is also false, because they will drive up the price while doing so and create a MASSIV attention for that post in no time. The downvoted user would become the highlight of the platform and earn more money from others for being opposed. If I have learned anything in 16 months on Steem it is that the community is pretty tight.

It is also pretty much a direct way to fight abuse, bots and spam.

This has nothing to do with decentralization, something that is given with the witness system and the Delegated Proof of Stake.