Yep, not only are a few whales sponsoring their fan base with decent up votes, they are also the financial backing behind some flag groups/accounts. They do this by delegating SP to the "group" to make it look, on the surface anyway, like they are not the ones flagging. The "group" publishes posts inviting folks to get rewarded for their flags. This turns into censorship as the "group" decides who to flag by having the ability to select which flags to reward and I haven't seen them flag a whale's shitpost yet.

I see this as the same thing as buying an Army of mercenaries to eliminate the competition; an offensive move rather than a defensive one.

Another option is to leave Steemit, and this is exactly what is happening. Of the 570 or so followers I have, about 400 are dead or inactive accounts. These folks have not voted, flagged, posted, commented or claimed rewards for months.

At this time I'm not willing to purchase enough Steem to gain the ability to throw my weight around, but I will end this comment with a question: How many accounts can one entity posses and control?