RE: Will Flagging Ultimately End up Killing the Steemit Platform?
A mute function is a really good idea. I think there is something in place, but I have never used it so I couldn't really say for sure.
I do agree with you about freedom of speech versus censorship. With flagging, a 'sensitivity' group could prevent hate speech from being rewarded, but it doesn't stop people from saying what they want.
There is a world of difference between that and all the accounts being randomly blocked on Twitter and Facebook for expressing unpopular opinions.
The issue with flagging isn't that people are abusing their flags, the issue is that the power to flag is unfairly distributed because of the way STINC premined the blockchain.
Fortunately the distribution is improving gradually. Unfortunately there is still a long way to go.
SMT's will be a huge step in the right direction, because it allows individual communities a 'fresh start' where the content within their garden will be ranked based on their own chosen reward mechanism, instead of based on the SP of the super-rich.
You sound more learned on some of these topics than I am. I'm going to have to study Steemit more, read the white paper in full, and also start investigating the SMT situation as well.
I think the white paper is accessible for most people with a decent background in blockchain technology or game theory. Might be a little challenging otherwise.
The SMT white paper is a lot more technical, but you should be able to find some high level overviews breaking it down.